Tillage & Fury examines anger as an ecological force within Black experience, tracing interconnected histories of rice cultivation, colonialism, and survival. Through my essay-film, I map a complex geography linking the transatlantic slave trade to the 2022 Liberian rice shortage, using the lifecycle of flies and the cultivation of rice as parallel narratives of resistance and transformation.
The film weaves together my personal and historical trajectories, examining how agricultural colonialism transformed Liberia from a self-sufficient rice producer to a nation facing food insecurity within just over a century. Through my perspective as a Liberian-American and my family's direct experience of this crisis, I reveal how colonial plantation economies continue to shape contemporary lives and landscapes.
By interweaving these narratives of ecological and human displacement, I position anger not merely as an emotion, but as a material force emerging from the violent disruption of traditional relationships between people and land.
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Written, Directed, & Edited by Leila Weefur
Animation by Tuğçe Evirgen Özmen
Music by Yari Bundy
Featuring: Deya Guy-Vasson, Hannah Beck, Sam Genovese, Kevin McCoy, Alene Deyein, Cecil Weefur
Crew: Sandy Williams IV, Mariana Parisca, Perrin Turner