In April 2020, Vimeo launched a short film series titled Stories in Place, featuring original films by Staff Picked filmmakers focusing on small businesses navigating the pandemic. Since then, the series has garnered backing from Mailchimp – an apt partner whose primary customer is small business owners – and today sees the launch of season two. The collection of seven films this time centres entirely on Black filmmakers, whose films tell the “behind-the-counter” stories of their favourite Black-owned small businesses, and stretch from a vegan restaurant in Peckham Rye to a boutique in Nairobi via a sneaker consignment shop in Newark, New Jersey.
The filmmakers include Cydney Tucker, Raishad M. Hardnett, Aidan M. Un, Amandla Baraka, and Curtis Essel, whose film blends archival and 16mm footage with one-to-one interviews, depicting the Peckham restaurant Zionly Manna. “It fills me with so much humility to tell Jahson’s [the restaurateur’s] story,” Essel says, “not only because of the profound impact he had on my life, but also because he conveys a message of ’self-reliance’ that I want to amplify to the wider community.”