reparations
Logline
His words tell one story, his sketches tell the truth.
Film Summary
Reparations centers on Howard, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who agrees to be interviewed by Michonne, an African American lesbian graduate student researching reparations for descendants of enslaved people. As Howard recounts his experiences surviving a concentration camp, he struggles to see any parallel between the reparations he received from Germany and those sought by Black Americans. Over the course of their conversation, contradictions emerge, and Howard’s unspoken memories begin to surface, revealing a deeper and more complicated truth.
About the Film
Reparations is a character driven short film written and directed by Gregory that examines memory, trauma, and the limits of empathy across generational and cultural lines. Rather than offering clear answers, the film explores how personal history shapes perspective and how unresolved pain can distort understanding of others’ suffering.
The story unfolds primarily through dialogue, using conversation as both connection and confrontation. As Howard speaks, his sketches quietly reveal what words cannot, creating a tension between public narrative and private truth. Through this contrast, the film considers how trauma is carried, compartmentalized, and sometimes denied.
Reparations invites audiences to sit with discomfort and contradiction, asking how societies acknowledge historical harm and who is deemed worthy of recognition and repair. The film resists easy resolution, instead emphasizing the complexity of memory, accountability, and human vulnerability.
