September is International Underground Railroad Month in Ohio. To mark the occasion, The Kelton House Museum and Garden will present the documentary “ A Higher Law The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858” which was awarded an Emmy this year by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences- Ohio Valley.

The Oberlin–Wellington Rescue of 1858 was a key event in the history of abolitionism leading up to the Civil War, in which a group of 37-white and black men in Ohio were charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This is the first time that a ‘higher law’ defense was used in a federal court case.

Filmmakers Scott Spears & Christina Paolucci have produced numerous documentary films which include: Zane’s Trace: A Road into the Wildnerness (2012), The Legacy of Eastgate (2012), Historic Woodland Park (2015) and The Artist & the Anthropologist (2019).

Scott Spears is an Emmy winning cinematographer that teaches screenwriting and film production at Ohio State University in the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts. He has a B.A.and M.A. in cinema production from Ohio State University. He won his Emmy for his cinematography on the PBS short film adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “The Birthmark,” and won a Blue Cable Access Award for directing the documentary “Reasonable Doubt.” Spears, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio, spent a decade working in Los Angeles, California with over 30-feature films credited to his name and owns and operates the video production company, Productions Partners Media.

Christina Paolucci is an award winning photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. She has a B.A in Photojournalism from Western Kentucky University, a M.A. in Photography from Ohio University and a M.S. in Women’s Studies from Mankato State University. She has been recognized twice with the Best Press Photographer’s Portfolio from the Minnesota Newspaper Association, the Humanitarian Award from the Associated Press. Paolucci has been featured in two Rick Smolan’s day-in-a-life picture book series; America 24/7 and My America at Home. Paolucci, originally from northern Kentucky, was a daily news photographer for a decade in Minnesota and owns a photography business, Second Spring Media.

A Higher Law: Emmy Winning Documentary viewing