Chris Simon & Maureen Gosling of THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC! - Western Carolina University, Robinson Film Center, & Union College

From filmmakers Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling of THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC!:

CULLOWWHEE, NC

We interrupted our Tour to make a brief trip to Austin for SXSW where we joined others from the Les Blank film family to celebrate the opening of A Poem is a Naked Person, a film the late documentarian made 40 years ago on rock star Leon Russell. Maureen spent two years living at Russell’s rural Oklahoma studio compound, working with Blank as an assistant and sound recordist. After Les’ death, his son resurrected the film and miraculously convinced Leon Russell to let it be released. It was an event neither of us could possibly miss. The opening was fabulous, with Leon Russell in attendance, as well as many family and friends, and the celebration lasted – well, too long!

Maureen on stage at SXSW

After 2 hours of sleep, Chris flew back to Atlanta, leaving Maureen to further celebrations, and drove to Cullowhee, NC. What was supposed to be a three hour drive was more like five, but she got there, exhausted, in time. The screening was at Western Carolina University and there were young student filmmakers, as well as musical members of the community. As usual, it was a real pleasure to talk to the folks afterwards.

Chris with some questionable barbecue on the way to Cullowhee

Coffee was very much needed on the five hour drive to WCU!

SHREVEPORT, LA

We made it to Shreveport with little time to spare on Thursday afternoon, enough to briefly check in at the fancy casino hotel. We headed to the impressive Robinson Film Center, where the screening room was set up with chairs, and a hot string band trio performing and singing for people as they arrived. During the screening, we had a delicious dinner across the hall in the classy bistro. The audience loved the film and there turned out to be among them a more than usual number of record collectors, historians and music aficionados. They not only knew a lot about the music in the film, but reminded us of Shreveport’s place in US music history, such as being home to the famous Louisiana Hayride and the legendary Leadbelly. Archivist and historian Chris Brown played a musical sample for the audience from a 78 recording of a local musician whom Arhoolie Records’ artist Black Ace gave credit for his slide guitar style. Post screening, we had drinks with Chris, his wife, Board of Directors member Jeff Hendricks and other music aficionados. It was nice to have the time to chat at length. We were sorry not to have time to make a pilgrimage to Leadbelly’s grave, but next time.

Trio playing as people arrived

Robinson Film Center's electronic billboard

Film Reel Art

Drinks with Chris Brown, Jeff Hendricks, and others

BARBOURVILLE, KY

Up and out early next morning, we flew to Knoxville, TN, where we rented a car to drive north into Kentucky to Barbourville for our last screening of the Tour. Finding our way to the correct highway from the Knoxville airport and then finding the airport again later proved to be one of the most stressful parts of our trip – thank God for GPS! Chris swore off paper maps after that one. But otherwise it was a nice, partly foggy drive to Barbourville, where the screening was held at Union College. The venue, once again, was a re-purposed church hall that housed a theatre and portable movie screen. We were pleased at the almost full house, made up of many students who’d been encouraged by their instructors to show up. That meant more young folks. During the screening, the new local and very popular Italian restaurant kindly squeezed us in, though we had no reservation (plus it was Saturday night) and we discovered that Barbourville is “dry”, so we couldn’t bring in our celebratory bottle of wine. Back at the theater, the Q & A was hosted by Union College professors and folklorists Hugo Freund and Susan Isaacs. They lead the questions and offered their own, making it a pleasingly in-depth experience for the audience who stayed till the very end. Our hosts provided treats for all afterwards. We were very satisfied with the ending of our wonderful Southern Circuit Tour. Chris headed home the next morning and Maureen went on for an overnight trip to nearby Harlan, KY, where she had lived for four years as a child.

Folklorists Hugo Fruend (left) and Susan Isaacs (right) with Chris and Maureen (middle)

Reception

Maureen with Daniel Boone

FINAL THOUGHTS

We really congratulate the hosts in each town we visited for their hard work in promoting the arts and keeping the arts vibrant in their communities. It’s clear that the Southern Circuit Tour is a great contribution to that. We were very impressed with the win-win that the Tour affords both us as filmmakers and the community audiences we were able to share our film with. An exhausting, but richly rewarding experience! Long live South Arts!

Kit Gruelle from Private Violence - The Tennessee Valley Art Association, Western Carolina University, & Robinson Film Center

From Kit Gruelle of Private Violence:

In Shreveport at the Robinson Film Center on 2/19/15 from left to right (Sgt. Lindsey Bonner - Shreveport Police Department Domestic Violence Unit; the one and only Kit; Angela Henderson - Project Celebration Sexual Assault Executive Director & Domestic Violence Advisor; Petrina Jenkins - Project Celebration Domestic Violence Community Educator & Public Relations Coordinator.

I attended three screenings of Private Violence on the Southern Circuit tour – one in Sheffield, Alabama, one in Shreveport, Louisiana and one here in my own state of North Carolina, at Western Carolina University. Each event and audience was completely different, but the common thread between them was clear: the people who came believe wholeheartedly that domestic violence is something that everyone should care about and get involved in preventing. It is not an issue that is just the domestic violence agency’s “problem.” It is not a “private” problem. And it will take greater collaboration with everyone across our communities, not just with our criminal justice professionals, to get there. Domestic violence is, in fact, a societal problem that, directly or indirectly, touches everyone.

I was inspired by talking to so many people, and was especially moved by the young people who were passionate about getting into this work. I talked to several young women and men out there who are just starting their work on ending violence against women, and they were not afraid of what they are getting into. I was thrilled to see law enforcement so actively engaged at the screening in Shreveport. I loved that half of the people who attended the WCU event were men. There is much to be hopeful about. And yet, I still heard stories from advocates in the audience that made my skin crawl and my jaw drop. One lamented the fact that a particular judge in a neighboring county refuses to issue any protective orders period because he, “doesn’t want to come between a man and his gun.” This is 2015! We have the power to change communities with this film and its community outreach initiative and we appreciate Southern Circuit for giving us the opportunity to nurture these conversations.


When people come together to watch the film and participate in its outreach and collaboration initiative, they learn about the complex realities battered women and children face in their communities. Important relationships get formed, which leads to a more comprehensive and community-based response. No one person or agency can do this work alone, but together, much good can be accomplished.

Hao Wu, The Road to Fame - Robinson Film Center, Union College, & Ritz Theatre

From Filmmaker Hao Wu of The Road to Fame:

The first leg of my Southern Circuit tour was intense; two flights each day, and one to two hours of driving to get to most screening venues. Exhausting, but what a trip! As an immigrant who had lived in six American cities over fifteen years, I had never stepped foot in the south. Not that I didn't want to - kids of my generation grew up in China reading Gone With The Wind, but somehow I never managed to. Now I'm able to have a fast and furious immersion of southern hospitality, all thanks to South Arts.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping my The Road to Fame is bringing a little China to the south. Most of the audience members have never been to China. So naturally, I was apprehensive about how the audiences would receive such a subtitled film from a faraway land.

Surprisingly, however, many came up to me after the screenings, saying the characters in the film didn't feel foreign to them. At the Robinson Film Center and Union College, students completely identified with the dreams, the anxieties over potential failures, and the pressure from family and society that the Chinese students experienced in the film. Those with ambitions in the arts felt the resonance the strongest.

Meanwhile, older audiences tended to be more interested in what China is like and how it is changing. At the Ritz Theater in Sheffield, AL, several audience members had visited China a long time ago, and it was eye opening for me even to learn about the country they knew that had been erased by recent developments. After the screening, they queried me about the one-child policy, the performance arts industry in China, and what I thought where China is going. It was extremely rewarding for a filmmaker to be able to move audiences with a universal story, and to act as a cultural ambassador for his home country at the same time.

All three screening venues so far - Robinson Film Center in Shreveport, LA, Union College in Barbourville, KY, and the Ritz Theater in Sheffield, AL - are beautiful. No hustle and bustle of the big city or the local multiplex. Stepping inside them was like being transported back in time, when film watching was once cozy and communal. My hosts - Meghan Hochstetler in Shreveport, Diana Mills at Union College and Jim Berryman in Sheffield - lavished their attention and care, for which I'm immensely grateful. I'm eagerly looking forward to the second leg of screenings in North Carolina and Georgia, and will report back soon.

Shelli Ainsworth, Stay Then Go - Shreveport, LA

Filmmaker Shelli Ainsworth, touring her film Stay Then Go, checks in with us from her first stop on Southern Circuit:

I'm sitting here on the tarmac in Shreveport, in a little plane in the singular row of A. It's a bright, warm, blue, sunshine-y morning, easy to bask in. Easy to bask in as well, is our experience last night at the Stay Then Go screening at the Robinson Film Center. Thanks to the audience and the staff at the film center for thoroughly warm welcome. Geoff and I met many people from the community there and - so very memorably - people from the Shreveport autism community as well. Mothers, teachers, therapists, young people, old people - all fighting the good fight. What a powerful experience.

Meghan Hochstetler put together a great panel after the screening. I was so grateful to hear from the panelists and the dialogue that the film generated about advocacy, inclusion, and insights from a young man with autism named Trent, who Geoff and I will remember always.

Francine Strickwerda, Oil & Water - Shreveport, LA & Barbourville, KY

The latest update from filmmaker Francine Strickwerda, touring her film Oil & Water on the Southern Circuit:

Bloodshot Eyes, Full Heart  - Can’t Lose

After days packed with plane flights, long car drives, and film screenings, I head home to Seattle, Wash. today, but find myself wishing I could stay on this wild ride that is the Southern Circuit. My eyes are bloodshot, but my heart is full.

At Robinson Film Center in Shreveport, La. on Thursday night, I met with lovely students from Centenary College (I’m talking about you, the sweet filmmaking kid who flattered us by calling yourself “fanboy”!) and was part of a lively panel discussion with university professors Dalton Gossett (biological sciences) and David Hoass (economics), as well as Oliver Jenkins, Shreveport City Council member and president of Phillips Energy.  Thanks so much to these gentlemen and to the Robinson Film Center’s Meghan Hochstetler and Alex Kent, for structuring such a thoughtful conversation around OIL & WATER. Alex and Meghan charm the birds out of the trees with their passion for film and their commitment to promoting the well being of the Shreveport community. And the fact that they are both former newspaper reporters (like me) endeared me to them all the more. To top it all off, Meghan and Alex took me to the Center’s own restaurant for some delicious seafood gumbo. There’s a lot to love about the Robinson Film Center!

Then things got a little crazy. After a cancelled flight and a rental car mix up on Friday, I got lost on my way to Barbourville, Ky. Just when I started to really panic, I got a call from Diana Mills, foundation relations director at Union College, and she calmly filmmaker whispered me to campus. She and Union College President Marcia Hawkins welcomed me warmly to their newly updated theater for a screening that was big, but also, because everybody knows one another in this small town, intimate.

I was heartened by the kindness and enthusiasm of the audience, and enjoyed a conversation that was steeped in the community’s shared history. I was intrigued by the parallels that were drawn between the struggles of the Cofan people in OIL & WATER, and those of the people of Appalachia dealing with the coal industry. At the reception following the screening, I got to really dig in with some townspeople who shared their own stories of history and their pride of place, including one woman’s film project about local legend, Daniel Boone. I found myself falling for these people, and wondering how I could manage to find my way back to Barbourville.

As the evening wound down, Diana packed me a plate of leftover deserts from the screening and took me to “Scholar Holler” where the college put me up in my own apartment. There I ate my sweets and fell asleep watching an old Mae West film on TV. It was another magical night on the Southern Circuit.