“Film-making from below” meets “History from below”
By Tony Buba (Director) and Marcus Rediker (Producer)
Tony Buba: Since the 1970s I have devoted the majority of my filmmaking career to chronicling the human effects of the deindustrialization of my hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania, once a thriving steel community. My films document the struggles of working people caught in harsh, sometimes deadly situations. In this community I found courage, humor, resilience, and a stubborn will, as reflected in the title of my 2012 film, We Are Alive, an account of the closing of Braddock’s only hospital because it was wasn’t generating sufficient profits.
Marcus Rediker: Since the 1970s I have devoted my career as a historian to chronicling the human effects of the rise of capitalism around the Atlantic, on tall ships and in port cities. Like Tony, I have focused on working people caught in harsh, sometimes deadly situations – sailors and enslaved people, for example, whether on pirate ships or slave ships. I also found courage, humor (often gallows humor), and a rebellious will to survive and to imagine a better world. I, too, explore the contradictory relationship between people and profits.
Tony: We had come to know each other over the years, mostly through attending the same political demonstrations in Pittsburgh. When Marcus approached me in February 2013 about making a film in Sierra Leone about the memory of the Amistad Rebellion of 1839, I agreed to do it almost before he finished his pitch. We assembled a talented team: Konrad Tuchscherer and Philip Misevich of St. John’s University and the late Taziff Koroma of Fourah Bay College. Our film crew consisted of John Rice, Jan McMannis, and the late Idriss Kpange of Freetown. We traveled to Sierra Leone in May 2013, interviewed elders from ten villages, found the long-lost slave trading factory called Lomboko, and produced the award-winning documentary, Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels, the following year.
Marcus and I had talked about Benjamin Lay frequently over the years and finally, he proposed that we do a new documentary on this very difficult and principled man. In working with Marcus in telling Benjamin’s story, I saw an opportunity to recover a radical figure who felt startlingly contemporary. Lay did not wait for permission to speak. He did not temper his message to make others comfortable. He embodied dissent. The film explores how Lay’s ideas were shaped by his experiences as a sailor, a shopkeeper, and a witness to human cruelty. His life forces us to consider what moral consistency looks like in our own time.
Marcus: I’ve been on a Benjamin Lay juggernaut since publishing a biography, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, in 2017. I worked with Paul Buhle and artist David Lester to create Prophet against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel, in 2021. I had also teamed up with Naomi Wallace to write a stage play, The Return of Benjamin Lay, and invited Tony to come to London in the summer of 2023 to film when the play had its premiere. Our second collaboration had begun.
Tony: Filming in London was much different than I thought it was going to be. I had never been involved with a play and its opening. I had no idea how intense everything was going to be. Fortunately, we got interviews with the actor, director, playwrights, and others before the play opened. This freed our time to concentrate on filming several performances of the play, post-play interviews, and Q&A sessions without interfering with the production of the play itself.
Marcus: In July 2024 we had a unique opportunity to hold – and film – a reading of the play in Baltimore, at the annual convention of Little People of America, the world’s biggest advocacy organization (7,500 members) on behalf of people with dwarfism. Our actor, Mark Povinelli, had served as the immediate past president of the organization and was much beloved among its members. From the very beginning of our work on the play, Naomi Wallace and I had aimed to present the play to this group, those who knew the lived experience of dwarfism.
Tony: If we hadn’t filmed in Baltimore, we would not have a film. We almost didn’t go because we knew there would be significant limitations on what we could capture on camera. However, our editor of the film, Tom Dubensky, insisted that we go. He said, you have no idea what you might get. Tom was right. We got access to rehearsals and conducted rich and moving interviews with a dozen LPA leaders and activists. We used the Baltimore footage to weave the film together.
Marcus: We completed the filming after successive productions of the play in Pittsburgh, New York, and Philadelphia during the first half of 2025. We wanted to combine four main themes in the film. First, to ask, who was Benjamin Lay and why has he been forgotten? Second, how would Mark Povinelli learn to inhabit an 18th century figure like Benjamin Lay? How would he “become” Benjamin Lay? Third, what can we learn about prejudice against little people past and present? Fourth, what can Benjamin Lay teach us about how to live with courage and conviction in dark times?
Tony: In a moment when social justice movements continue to challenge entrenched systems of power, Benjamin Lay’s story resonates powerfully. It fits the moment. He reminds us that the work of dissent has always been hard and uncomfortable, and that meaningful change can begin with a single, uncompromising voice. I hope audiences leave the film asking themselves not only who Benjamin Lay was, but what it means to “become” Benjamin Lay today.
Marcus: The simple truth is that we still have not caught up to Benjamin Lay even though he lived 300 years ago. This fierce, principled working-class man continues to be a source of courage, inspiration, and hope. As Mark Povinelli says, as Benjamin Lay, at the end of the play, “You need to join me.” As Tony says, we all need to become Benjamin if we are to have a world that we really want to live in. Benajmin teaches us that we can make our own “history from below.”