It’s a story worth telling. It’s a story few people know about. And above all, it’s a story that almost everyone will enjoy.

So say those involved with the production and upcoming preview of a documentary called The Search for Anna & Levi: A Lost History of Black Homesteaders in Leelanau County. The film will be shown at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 23 at the Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay.

The film focuses on the family of Anna and Levi Johnson, two former slaves who homesteaded in Leelanau County in the late 19th century. In the film, directed by Joe VanderMeulen, local resident Kevin Brooks brings two Johnson family descendants from Philadelphia to Leelanau County to explore this history.

Brooks was the 2023 recipient of the Leelanau Historical Society’s Leelanau Press Research Fellowship. As he dug into his own roots, LHS Executive Director Kim Kelderhouse tells The Ticker, he discovered a substantial connection to the Johnson family. This ultimately led to an “extremely heartwarming” story of two families coming together to celebrate the past and present.

“(Kevin’s) great-grandmother passed away, and his great-grandfather was left a widower with three young children. One of the Johnson family members ended up caring for those young children, and that's kind of at the core of this story, and of Kevin’s impetus for wanting to track down the descendants,” Kelderhouse says. “He wanted to say thank you – your family made it possible for my family to stay together.”

On a broader level, the film takes a close look at the little-known history of the many black homesteaders who were in the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It features interviews with descendants, local historians and regional experts.

“One of the lines from the film that is seared into my brain now is that history is written by those who stayed,” Kelderhouse says. "Well, the Johnsons didn't stay in this area, just like many African-American families didn't stay, and so their story kind of got swept under the rug.”

The preview event will include a Q&A session with the film’s sponsor, producer and key participants, all moderated by the film's narrator, Isiah Smith. An official premiere will follow on May 31, with Johnson family descendants and others involved with the film on hand. While the location for the premiere hasn’t been set in stone, Kelderhouse suspects it will be held at the Sleeping Bear Dunes visitor center in Empire.

Despite the impending premiere, it felt right to have a special preview screening in February, Kelderhouse says.

“We wanted to start the buzz, and we felt like it was a good natural event for this month being Black History Month,” she says. “It’s also just a nice thing for locals to do in the offseason.”

The film will kick off The Bay’s “Made in Michigan” film series, and Bay General Manager Graham Powers is excited for the “amazing opportunity” to screen the film.

“It’s a very compelling and unique story on a topic that I think we should be shining a spotlight on more,” he tells The Ticker. “It’s a beautifully done documentary that I'm really looking forward to sharing with the community.”

The timing is ideal in more ways than one, Graham says.

“I think that when we can share these types of stories, especially in more tumultuous times, it shows that we’re all human; we’re all similar,” he says. “This is is a story of positivity, and I’m sure that people will see that.”