Noel Schwerin of A Kind of Order visits Pompano Beach, Indie Memphis, and Auburn University

From Filmmaker Noel Schwerin of A Kind of Order:

Well, it was sunny, and the small audience that had heard about the film stayed for a lengthy Q&A with one viewer (a high school teacher) pressing for greater outreach for films like IDEAL, and offering his educational networks to the organizer. There are certainly audiences in southern Florida…I invite them to contact me to see the film and hear about the others in the Circuit!

 
Last night’s screening with Indie Memphis at the Screen on the Square was such a pleasure! The screen was big, the sound was great and the projected image was perfect. More importantly, members of the board of directors at Indie Memphis worked hard to reach out to a variety of communities, and the post film discussion was hugely enriched by their efforts. Thank You! The audience included, for instance, a retired correctional officer whose son had been an offender, the director and volunteers of a Memphis justice organization, MidSouth Peace and Justice Center, and many other curious and knowledgeable community members. Diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, knowledge about prison and in their professions, it was an audience that shared its varied perspective and experiences with each other and with me. Just the kind of screening that helps move the conversation about the role of prison in America!

Now at my final stop - and the final screening of this year’s Circuit - the beautiful Jule Collins Smith Museum at Auburn University. A land grant school with a great football team (my sons tell me), the school has a very active film program at the museum. While exam week kept many students away, an informed, interested and active group of community members came and shared comments, questions and support for the Southern Circuit.

It’s been a fascinating (and beautiful) tour of the south - an opportunity and access I could not have organized on my own, and I have been thrilled and honored to be a part of it!

Danielle Beverly from Old South visits Auburn University

From filmmaker Danielle Beverly:

Auburn, AL was my second stop with Old South on The Southern Circuit. I nearly didn't make the screening on time when I discovered I'd reserved a car at the Columbia SC airport, and not the Columbus GA airport. Doh!

"I'm sorry Ma'am we don't have any cars. Completely sold out," was the response I got from each of the apologetic rental agencies. Some quick producing got me into a cab and across the state line to the Jule Collins Museum of Fine Art on the campus of Auburn University

I was met by "Super Docent" Virginia Transue. She was working an afternoon chamber music event in the atrium, a series she is deeply involved with there. Virginia was to be my host and liaison. She and I hit off immediately. As the concert was ending I did my tech check in the theatre, and then Virginia drove us the mile to her home to have  a lovely egg salad sandwich lunch before the screening.

We talked about music, politics, Southern identities, and super computers. She shared the press clipping she'd saved, promoting Old South. We did some bird-watching - an energetic woodpecker was the highlight. She told me about her departed husband Bill, who was clearly the love of her life for over 45 years - a mathematician from French ancestry, who fell in love with the plucky young Virginia, from rural Louisiana.

As we got ready to drive back to the museum the sky had darkened. Thankfully, a torrential late afternoon rain still did not keep the audience away. Students arrived soaking wet, but ready to watch the film.

Afterwards a great Q&A with questions about fraternities and the eerie timeliness of Old South's release, why and how I made the film, and a reflection from a man who'd lived in Athens, GA and knew the neighborhood in the film. (Each screening seems to have at least one former Athens resident).

The conversation continued in the museum's cafe as a jazz band played in the atrium. Virginia's offered this sage observation on life in the South, "Alabama is frustrating often, discouraging often, but it is never boring".

As we drove home, Virginia's eagle eye spotted a coyote loping across the road. We stopped the car and watched it as it watched us. Then it turned and disappeared into the woods. A beautiful way to end the night.

Yvonne Welbon of The New Black - East Tennessee State University, Indie Memphis, and Auburn University

From producer Yvonne Welbon of The New Black:

Working with a small team I oversee The New Black’s Empowering Equality outreach and engagement campaign focused primarily on LGBT, faith and African-American communities. In collaboration with our partner organizations (e.g., Human Rights Campaign, ACLU, Gay-Straight Alliance Network), our national campaign launched in 2013 with a number of initiatives and piloted a series of activities geared toward fostering dialogue, bridge-building and inspiring action. We have focused on three key areas as part of an overarching public education effort. They included 1) Faithbased Initiatives; 2) Institutional and Organizational Development; and 3) Grassroots Organizing encompassing political and legislative advocacy and increasing media visibility. The goals of Southern Circuit Tour align with many of our goals, including our strong desire to reach our goals with communities in the South.

East Tennessee State University 

The first stop on my tour was the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at East Tennessee State University (ETSU). With The New Black Empowering Equality campaign, our goal is to support the development of diversity and inclusion practices within colleges, universities, corporations, and nonprofit organizations committed to developing and sustaining diverse, inclusive environments.

Working with the fabulous ETSU team that included Associate Dean Anita DeAngelis, Assistant Director Heidi Ehle and RTVF Director Shara Lange I experienced a full day of activities that included a classroom visit, small group critiques, a faculty/staff dinner, the screening of the film and a reception. The team at ETSU garnered quite a bit of press for the event. The film screening was written about in East Tennessean, A! Magazine, The Kingsport Times-News, and Johnson
City Press.

Yvonne Welbon presenting a case study of The New Black to Professor Tammy Hayes RTVF Writing Class. 

Professor Tammy Hayes RTVF Writing Class

Professor Shara Lange arranged a small group critique session with students

Post screening Q & A

The Reception

Indie Memphis

The New Black screened at Malco Studio on the Square in Memphis. The screening attracted a crowd that included members of OutLaw 901, the #1 LGBT Guide to Memphis TN. Members from Cathedral of Praise Church of Memphis decided to bring their Wednesday night Bible Study to the screening. Overall the audience mix helped to create an amazing post screening discussion moderated by Whitney, the Founder of OutLaw 901.

New Black Producer, Yvonne Welbon with members of Cathedral of Praise Church of Memphis

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University 

My last stop on the Southern Circuit Tour was the beautiful Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. The screening was open to the public and included students and community members. The audience Q& A focused on topics that ranged from Alabama’s stance on Marriage Equality to the many issues addressed in the film. One young woman in the audience said that the film allowed her to think deeply about the issues in the film and had moved her to shift her position to one that was more open to acceptance. The Q& A moved from the theater to the atrium where we

enjoyed live jazz , good food and great conversation.

Producer, Yvonne Welbon; Museum Curator of Education, Scott Bishop; Audience members Kirk Swiss and Virginia E. O'Leary, Ph.D.; Professor Emerita, Auburn University

Marta Cunningham, Valentine Road - ETSU, Emory, & Auburn University

From Filmmaker Marta Cunningham of Valentine Road:

Southern Circuit Tour Part 2

Back to Atlanta, and then I jumped onto a quick flight to Johnson City to discuss filmmaking with students at East Tennessee State University, and a screening of Valentine Road. The drive in from the airport was beautiful. Watching the beginning of Fall come in with all the various colors of the autumn leaves changing was stunning. No more 90 degree weather; Fall had come to Tennessee. The Carnegie Hotel across the street from the University was straight out of a play or a movie from the 30s, like The Grand Hotel. Everything was beautifully done in period style. Even though the actual building was only 14 years old, the beautiful antiques, style, and design were not.

 The next morning I spoke with undergraduate students majoring in Radio, Television and Film. They were incredibly open and inquisitive. Vulnerable but not shy. We spoke about how technology has changed the game and it was no longer a necessity to have expensive cameras to shoot your film, or to spend thousands of dollars to end up in New York or LA. I have been traveling with the film for almost two years now. While visiting the many festival around the world, I have been lucky enough to meet many different filmmakers from all over, and the new trend is staying put. Telling stories about where you're from and developing a community of artist at home has been incredible to watch grow. One of the questions I posed to the students was, "Does your dream involve being extremely rich beyond your wildest dreams and hanging out with movie stars, or do you want to be an independent filmmakers and  tell stories?" I was very honest with them about the realities of being a filmmaker, and working anything you can get to pay the bills while pursuing your dreams. Luckily, they seemed unfazed and excited about the opportunity of not having to move to one of the coasts in order to pursue their passion. I left intrigued with where this class will end up.

 
That afternoon, I was back with another class watching a very talented director's documentary short on Mars 1. A well-done rough cut. The second time the class and I watched it together, I went through my notes with the director and the class, and discussed the story, pacing, and the length of a good short. I loved it. The class seemed excited as well. The director is passionate about her work and the craft of filmmaking, which is always great to witness.

The screening of Valentine Road that night was emotional. There were a lot of tears and anger about the state of our country, and the senselessness of the hate and violence that we discuss in the film. One woman who spoke to us shared her story, through tears, about living in Tennessee and coming out at 43 years old. She was destroyed by the hatred she witnessed in the film and vowed to make a difference in her community. She said it was difficult, because from her viewpoint, the LGBT community was not visible and she wanted more. I am hopeful that she is on a path to help change her community. Another young woman shared her story of her father and grandmother being homophobia, and growing up in a Baptist fundamentalist community. When she first came to ETSU, she didn't know how to act or what to say to someone who was in the LGBT community. However, over time she has learned to open up and become accepting, and is happy to say she now has gay and lesbian friends at school. She then went on to say she was going to buy the DVD on Amazon and show her family it on movie night! I told her to let me know how it goes. So inspired by our youth, really shaking it up!

Back to Atlanta Airport and off to Oxford, Georgia to meet with the students and professors of Emory for a screening, and a class of Gender and Violence. The lovely place they chose for me to stay in is in a picture-perfect town called Covington, and called the 12 Oaks Bed and Breakfast, after its namesake from Gone With The Wind, (a film I still have not seen). A few years ago, it was a house in foreclosure, completely rundown and in disarray. Now it's Scarlett's Tara. It really is unique and beautiful. The owner, Nicole, has put an incredible amount of love into each room. The screening of Valentine Road played to a packed house of Emory students, by far the most vocal, distraught, and active group yet. The Q&A lasted for over an hour, and then continued afterwards with a few students in the hallway until almost midnight. The students were a true embodiment of diversity - not just in ethnicity, but also in thought and in how they processed the film. I was truly impressed.  What a great opportunity to witness. I told them all that the kids in the film are now their age, and how they are the future and have the responsibility to help change the various ills in our society. They seemed to welcome it with open arms.

Next up, my last stop on this incredible tour, Auburn University in Alabama. When I drove up to the beautiful museum where Valentine Road will be screening this evening, I stumbled directly into a field of cotton across the parking lot. I was struck immediately by not only its proximity to this new beautiful Italian marble structure, but to the fact it is the first time I have ever seen a cotton field up close and personal. It’s a part of our legacy that some African Americans would like to forget. I took a moment as dusk was approaching to take pictures, and pay tribute to my own personal family sacrifices and the heritage of our ancestors. It felt very big just standing there by that cotton field, like an ending source of pain that has not been healed or discussed. A discussion our country has been avoiding for hundreds of years.

When I walked in the museum, I was so happy to see their new exhibition - Rembrandt and The Golden Age of Painting in Europe, which I toured while the film played. (I stopped watching my film over a year ago.) I also was lucky enough to witness the partial eclipse of the sun through a local star watcher's telescope he and his wife had set up. It was awe inspiring to say the least.

The documentary played to a full house and some of the students happened to also be film students at the University. The Q&A was very interesting. At the initial session, the students seemed overwhelmed and timid at first. I noticed that mostly the young men were asking the questions. Slowly, as they became more comfortable with idea of talking directly to the source, the questions became in-depth about filmmaking. After the session, a few of the female students said they cried during the entire film. I told them I understood and that it was one of the reasons I don't watch the film anymore. I always let the students know how well most of the youth in the film are doing at this point in their lives, since they relate to them on a very intimate level. I know it could have been something they witnessed, since they are a generation that grew up with school shootings. Sadly, it is an almost everyday occurrence in our nation.

Overall, the Southern Circuit Tour of Valentine Road has been a deeply impactful and successful event. I am so grateful to Teresa Hollingsworth, South Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the professors and docents at all of the screenings who helped with the screenings, classes, and discussions that came out of their dedication to the arts.

Our youth are surprising us every day, and none more than the young men and women that I have met in my Southern Circuit Tour. Truly displaying unbelievable courage and commitment to the fight for equality for our all marginalized voices. I will be back!

Katie Damien, My Toxic Backyard - Auburn, AL

We have the final post from filmmaker Katie Damien's tour of the Southern Circuit, with her work My Toxic Backyard:

The last screening at Auburn was fantastic. Had a packed house full of students in a beautiful screening location. Got to see cotton plants and listened to some great live music on a terrace. This concludes my amazingly awesome journey on the southern circuit.

Morgan Nichols & 'How to Make Movies at Home' -- On Screen & in the Classroom

From Morgan Nichols

One thing that's easy:  connecting with the warm-hearted people at the colleges and universities on the Southern Circuit.

One thing that's hard:  finding a Blu-Ray scratch repair kit on the back roads of South Carolina.

Yeah, I can't tell you how it happened but we only got one projection out of the spanking-new Blue-Ray disk before it was fatally scratched.  Luckily, if there's one thing I know about cinema it's that a good story is far more important than High Definition!  So far these audiences have been engaged and engrossed (or so they tell me) and that's 

more important than having a few extra pixels in the frame.  

The workshops I've been teaching have also been a hit.  

At ETSU we spent two and a half hours doing a lighting workshop in their great tv studio.  Just a few students but a whole lot of craft - we ended up going beyond lighting and talking about lens and framing as well.  By the end, each student took a turn setting up a shot that would use light and camera placement to depict a specific kind of character.  Then we went to Quizno's and debated the Coen brothers and which was the best Batman movie.  Awesome.

At Auburn, thirty students attended a class where I gave a presentation on the unique form of directorless improvisational filmmaking (called lo-film) that I've been developing over the last decade+.  The lecture culminated in a brainstorming session where we collectively devised a whole film idea that we could shoot in the beautiful museum we were in.  It was bonkers, but great fun!

At Clemson I presented that same lo-film talk in a one-on-one conversation with professor Sarah Lauro, which we taped for future use.  Sarah was one of several fantastic hosts I've encountered, and we used every minute of our time talking about the political implications of zombie films, which Wes Anderson films were our faves (mine's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.  You heard me.) and about a million other things.

At Presbyterian I taught 25 students the basic vocabulary of film, and then they broke into groups and made one-shot movies with iPads.  Watching the super-short films was a hoot, and we all wished we'd had a little more time.

At each school the Q&A's have been fun.  Here's a taste of what happened when I pass the FlipCam around the audience:

  http://vimeo.com/74414384

SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS at Jule Collins Smith

After a long drive from South Carolina, through Georgia, into Alabama:

SBMP screened at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts in Auburn Alabama:

 A pretty dramatic building to screen in. It only got better as the sun went down:

 The audience was small but enthusiastic with questions spilling over into the Café gathering afterwards supported by some excellent brownies. I learned a little about the museum – it was built to house a collection of American art that was bought for about a thousand dollars (!) in a government auction in the 40’s. The work includes Georgia O’Keefe, Ralston Crawford and Ben Shahn and I was told by one of the “regulars”, who is actually a docent at the museum, that the government wanted to get rid of the work after the artists were accused of being communist sympathizers. I’m sure I’m totally simplifying a complex story but I was intrigued. 

Thanks to Debbie Frojo who fielded endless emails and helped me figure out my stay and Scott Bishop for the welcome.  Last night and this morning was all about travel – airport hotel, 4:30 wake up call and then airport at dawn complete with rocking chairs:

Now zigzagging back into Eastern time and North Carolina….

David Simpson kicks off the tour for A Good Man

A GOOD MAN

David E. Simpson

This was my fourth time on the Circuit (Am I setting a record of any kind?). This one was a mini tour: Monsieurs Gordon Quinn and Bob Hercules, directors of A GOOD MAN, graciously allowed me to take a third of this tour due to my fondness for the open road and the warm Southern audiences that make up the circuit. My stops were Auburn, AL and Lafayette, LA.

Auburn was predictably pleasant. I’d been there on the 2009 tour with my film MILKING THE RHINO. That previous experience included a post-show soiree at someone’s home, where they fed me dinner and bourbon and the conversation went deep into the night. No such luck this time but the show was great anyway. The venue is a refreshing anomaly: a newish, stylish art museum on the outskirts of a university town otherwise devoted to football. The audience at each of my Auburn shows has been populated by several retired professors who seem to be regulars at the screenings, so the Q&As tend to be of a pretty high order.

The following night in Lafayette took the cake though. Screening in a state of the art theater in the brand new Acadiana Arts Center… the film never sounded better. But the real highlight was before and after the show. My host steered me towards Randols: a cavernous Cajun joint beloved by locals. It’s crawfish season! So I dared to have crawfish etouffee that was topped by a whole one of the little boogers, which I needed help from my waitress to figure out how to shell and eat. 

Then after the screening a local told me about the Blue Moon, just down the road, which hosted a Cajun jam session every Wednesday night. This place was the real deal: tucked out of the way on a side street, a dozen folks on stage w accordions, fiddles, guitars and washboard; a few younger folks on the periphery learning from the grizzled vets. Very cool.

All that, plus the 70-something weather, made it pretty hard to come back to Chicago.

The sorry thing is that I forgot to bring my camera (and my phone cam is crappola), so I can’t prove any of this.

Going on the Southern Circuit is a good reason to make more films.

The Adventures of Emily Hubley

Early morning to Newark Airport - gimping along on a bum leg and hoping it'll weather the trip. On BOTH planes, other passengers are in my seat, confusing "C" with some other letter. No big deal, but an interesting (or boring) pattern.

The rental car starts without an ignition key - again, no bother, but it takes getting used to. I'm terrified of locking the "keys" in the car. Lots of triple checking.

Drive to Auburn. Grand hotel.

I do some email in the room and realize I'm starving. Get a pork sandwich "Alabama style" at Moe's down the street.

Yummy, but - should have gotten the hot sauce.

As I'm leaving for the screening, I have a sudden tsunami of a nosebleed... (Comedy ensues).

I'm late arriving at the Jule Collins Smith Museum as night falls.

I meet my lovely host Scott Bishop at the auditoreum. The film looks dark, but people are arriving and there's nothing to do but hope for the best. The film runs. I'm relieved that people sound engaged - and then the Q+A is warm and fun - even though I grope the word "inevitable".. . But the audience bears with me and they're a super nice bunch.

We retire to the cafe for cookies and coffee and I meet Lexa, Paige and Isabella - 3 adorable (not to be condescending - they ARE) Auburn women studying graphic design, chemistry and engineering. Quite the trifecta. They like the movie enough to take dvds home which is great cuz my suitcase is stuffed! I close down the joint talking to Daniel, a budding filmmaker.

Back in my room, I'm grateful for the freezer - the "ice peas" are nice and cold as I ice my knee and write the blog.

Good night night one!

Welcome to Shelbyville

Does crawfish ever belong in a Louisiana gumbo? Sure, I would have said. I wouldn't have thought twice about it, before my visit to Lafayette this past week. But a testy debate took place at the bar I sat at just before the screening of my film at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. "You can be creative, but there are still some rules," the guy sitting next to me says. His friend seems to disagree but also seems a little intimidated, so he lets it go. Identifying himself as a young oil trader living between Lafayette and Houston, he also tells me first hand that well over double the amount of oil being reported during the spill had been pouring into the Gulf daily. "But the environment is incredibly resilient." Back to the oysters.

I'd always wanted to come here but this was a first. I consider myself a foodie and I'm still hoping for the perfect po' boy I've been dreaming about here in New Orleans before heading out to Clarkston Georgia tomorrow. Working backwards, the Southern Circuit tour I'm on began with what my friends would call a typical "Kim" story...arriving in Atlanta with my anal files in hand that mapquested me on to my first stop in Northern Alabama, within an hour I was lost in a desolate Georgian county on a road that took me a little too long to realize wasn't the interstate. It was when I had to find just the right country radio station that I probably missed that. Or could have been the gorgeous foliage I felt blessed to be getting for the third time this Fall. (In my defense, still jetlagged from having returned from Japan last week). I daydream about Japan. Flashing lights in the rear view mirror. Buzzkill. I have the worst cop karma on the planet. Yup - clocked 64 in a 55 zone. The big hat and shades and fears of a bad Harvey Keitel ending. Chalk it off to Southern hospitality, plain pity, or my own sincerity? - I got off with a verbal warning and detailed directions back to the interstate. I was so so grateful for the gracious welcome. Lesson learned - speed limit no joke here.

Auburn Alabama. I've tried to read up on Section 28 of the recent Alabama immigration law requiring schools to look into birth certificates of its students causing hundreds of immigrants to flee the borders overnight, and about the state challenge to the Justice Department...I wondered about university students here and if there was a sense of activism. One group walking in say the film was assigned to them in their sexuality class...interesting? I ask what students are thinking about it all after the screening at the campus art museum. Pretty much awkward silence. One young woman timidly says they've been discussing it in her political science class. Another man stands up and says as an Alabamian he feels shame. More awkward silence. Turns out he was a transplant professor from up North. Afterwards, over coffee, he, a German professor and another guy tell me they just don't talk about these things here.

Back to Lafayette and land of gumbo. I intro'd the film with how pleased I was to finally be in "Cajun country". Insensitive to some I later learn. I take this opportunity to listen and learn...about the places I am visiting and how the film and what it brings up for people is contextualized in each of these places. So in Lafayette LA, here's what I observed and learned. Much as I, as a northerner, have been seduced by fantasies of endless plates of crawfish, steaming gumbo, melodic Cajun jam sessions, and swamp alligators (all of which delivered without disappointment), a polite, yet firm conversation took place following the screening. Mainly between an older African American woman who identified as Creole, and a french-speaking Cajun woman of same generation. The black woman, who appreciated the film, was prompted to ask why the Lafayette football team's name had been changed to the "cajuns" and how it represented, in her mind, a more recent overreaction to past oppression and reclaiming of that cultural history in LA to the extent of negating Creole and African American contributions and even existence in the region's rich history. The Cajun woman went on to say that it is the "outsiders" who in fact come in and accentuate these labels and identities. My own associations with the region validated this I acknowledge. My takeaway from this was that one of the things I loved most about some of the subjects in my film was in fact their lack of PC consciousness. They say what's on their minds and fess up to what they don't know about the other. People need to risk sounding ignorant in order to simply talk about these issues. And that's what happened in Lafayette Wednesday night. A 30+ minute dialogue between locals about race, "cajun" and "creole" identities, and insensitivities they experience in local settings. This segued into a more universal consensus disproving recent immigration laws passed in neighboring Alabama and an explanation by one man about the local crawfish industry that similarly employs foreign newcomers and the fact that no locals still want to do that work, despite heightened unemployment. In the end it all circles back to my beloved topics - food and music and I ask about fusion? That solicited the best lecture ever on the roots of zydeco music from a resident master along with renewed debate over gumbo (oil trader guy from earlier bar has migrated here). Ice broken, I'm escorted over to Wednesday night jam session at the Blue Moon for a whiskey where local fiddlers and accordions serenade and I take a stab at the two step with a wannabe Cajun fiddler from Alaska.