A MAGNUM OPUS FILMS COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
FILM SYNOPSIS
This reflexive documentary traces the making of Where I Got My Name: Down in Mississippi, focusing on the uncanny synchronicities that unfolded along the journey. As archives opened, paths crossed, and moments aligned beyond coincidence, the film reflects an awareness of ancestral presence woven into the work. Blurring spirit and storytelling, the documentary becomes a meditation on memory, inheritance, and the unseen forces that shaped our pilgrimage.
syn·chro·nic·i·ty
noun
1. the simultaneous occurrence of events which
appear significantly related but have no discernible
causal connection.
"such synchronicity is quite staggering"
2. the coincidental occurrence of events and especially
psychic events that seem related but are not explained
by conventional mechanisms of causality.
Origin: 1950s; coined by C. G. Jung.
Synchronicity | Short Film (13:52 min)
Roughcut Premier, 2025, Los Angeles, Ca
Where I Got My Name: Roughcut Premier
Los Angeles, CA.
On Sunday, November 9, 2025, we premiered the rough cut of our family documentary video, "Where I Got My Name (Down in Mississippi). The film is being researched, produced and directed by the three of us with support from a dedicated crew of folks. It traces our Lenoir family history from enslavement to emancipation.
Four times over three years, we traveled to Mississippi to the site of the Lenoir Plantation in Morgantown, Marion County where we interviewed a descendant of the Lenoir enslavers and the town historian. We walked in the fields where our people picked cotton from sunup to sundown.
We went to Jayess, Walthall County where we interviewed distant cousins and held a memorial at the graves of Thomas H. Lenoir and Laura Ratcliff Lenoir, my great grandparents were enslaved and emancipated. We interviewed a historian in Lorman, Jefferson County at Alcorn State University where my grandfather and 13 of his siblings, the first of our family born free, attended college and graduated.
FILM SYNOPSIS DOWN IN MISSISSIPPI
Where I Got My Name: Down in Mississippi is an intimate, investigative documentary following Gerald LeNoir as he traces the lives of his enslaved ancestors in Marion County, Mississippi. Traveling to former plantations, courthouses, archives, and historic sites, Gerald confronts the silences and erasures embedded in the historical record while reflecting on how slavery’s legacy continues to shape identity, memory, and family lineage.
Told primarily through Gerald’s perspective, the film places a living descendant at the center of history. His journey is guided by archival discoveries, oral histories, and conversations with family members, local historians, and community elders. As records surface—and often disappear—the film embraces uncertainty as part of the narrative, revealing how gaps in documentation reflect the systemic dehumanization of enslaved people while underscoring their resilience and humanity.
Blending on-location cinematography, interviews, drone footage, animation, poetry, and an immersive, in-house soundscape featuring harmonica and trumpet, the film connects past and present through layered storytelling. Personal reflection expands into broader questions of reparations, reconciliation, and historical accountability, inviting audiences to consider how ancestral history informs contemporary life.
Part I of a two-film series, Where I Got My Name: Down in Mississippi establishes the foundation of the LeNoir family story while offering a powerful, accessible entry point into America’s unfinished reckoning with slavery. The film serves as both a personal act of remembrance and a communal invitation to confront history, honor lineage, and reclaim narratives long denied.
FILM SYNOPSIS DOWN IN LOUISIANA
Where I Got My Name: Down in Louisiana is an intimate, investigative documentary following Gerald LeNoir as he uncovers the lives of his enslaved ancestors in Louisiana. Traveling to plantations, courthouses, archives, and historic sites along the Mississippi River and bayou communities, Gerald confronts the silences and erasures embedded in the historical record while exploring how slavery’s legacy continues to shape identity, memory, and family lineage.
Told primarily through Gerald’s perspective, the film places a living descendant at the center of history. His journey is guided by archival discoveries, oral histories, and conversations with family members, local historians, and community elders. As records surface—and often disappear—the film embraces uncertainty as part of the narrative, revealing how gaps in documentation reflect the systemic dehumanization of enslaved people while highlighting their resilience, creativity, and humanity.
Blending on-location cinematography, interviews, drone footage, animation, poetry, and an immersive, in-house soundscape featuring harmonica, trumpet, and regional musical textures, the film connects past and present through layered storytelling. Personal reflection expands into broader questions of reparations, reconciliation, and historical accountability, inviting audiences to consider how ancestral history shapes contemporary life in the Deep South.
Part II of the two-film series, Where I Got My Name: Down in Louisiana continues the LeNoir family story, delving deeper into regional histories and cultural legacies. The film serves as both a personal act of remembrance and a communal invitation to confront history, honor lineage, and reclaim narratives long denied.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Over 20 years ago, I began researching where I got my name. Then, in June of 2023, my sons, Jamana and Jesse, and I made a life-changing journey to Mississippi and Louisiana to find out about our ancestors. We traveled to the sites of the plantations on which our family members were enslaved. There we began making a documentary film about our experience—but we need your help to finish the project. The YouTube video below is a 13-minute documentary on our Lenoir family's history that we made before we embarked on our journey. We are currently making a full length documentary on our family history. While this story is of immeasurable significance to our family, it is also vital for everyone to learn how the history of slavery shapes our society today.
Through our small family-owned company, Magnum Opus Films, we launched the project to tell the story of our people who were enslaved on the Lenoir plantation in Morgantown, Marion County, Mississippi and the Darensbourg plantation in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. So far, we have gone south four times to research, document and film the story of our family’s journey from enslavement to emancipation.
We launched this project on Juneteenth 2022, a national celebration of Black emancipation! In 2026, Part I: "Where I Got My Name (Down in Mississippi) will be released. Part II: "Where I Got My Name (Down in Louisiana) will be completed in 2027. Together, they are the story of our family and millions of other African American families.
We are asking you to support this project in any amount that you can. Greatly Appreciated!
Gerald Darensbourg LeNoir, Jr.
He began by asking us what we were doing and where we were from. “I have traveled from California with my sons to show them the land where our kin were enslaved,” my dad boldly replied. To our surprise, the landowner was moved my dad’s story and invited us to come to the other side of the fence and back to a clearing that he told us was the location of a cemetery where our ancestors were buried. When we reached the gravesite, we saw that only one weathered headstone—which was missing the portion with the name—remained.
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Left to right: Jesse, Jamana, Gerald on the Lenoir Plantation at a gravesite for enslaved people
Best Short Film
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
2nd Annual Radical Imagining • First Annual Ten-Minute Film Festival
Where I Got My Name | Preliminary Cut (2022)
Jesse Hagopian
Jesse Hagopian is a high school teacher in Seattle,
an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, and the author
of Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education
(Haymarket, 2025). "203"
The Magnum Opus Films Team
Synergy + Creativity + Synchronicity
The Blue Tide is the acoustic blues collaboration of lifelong friends J.D. Lenoir (Jesse Hagopian) and Daniel Rapport. Their sound is rooted in the classic delta blues tradition while their lyrics and attitude are firmly in the present.
