March's Films and Filmmakers

This month we welcome The Starfish Throwers, Old South, and This Ain't No Mouse Music! Find out more about these films below and check out the webpage to stay up-to-date with the entire lineup for the 2014-2015 Southern Circuit Film Schedule.

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Jesse Roesler is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in venues such as the SXSW Film Festival and on Current TV. Jesse’s approach to filmmaking is best described as ‘cinematic authenticity.’ By fusing narrative cinematic technique with the authenticity found in documentary-style filmmaking, his work blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction by capturing the truth in a conceptually thoughtful manner

As Impact Producer for The Starfish Throwers, Pete Tedrow helped manage the Kickstarter campaign to put the finishing touches on the film, coordinates distribution, handles outreach to community partners around the globe, develops social media strategy, and handles press communications. A freelance writer and educator, Pete holds a BA in English from Macalester College and an MFA in Writing from Hamline University. He also has extensive film festival experience, having worked on staff with the Sundance, Tribeca, and the Minneapolis St. Paul International; and volunteered with Telluride, Toronto International, and Sound Unseen.

Worlds apart, a five-star chef, a twelve year-old girl, and a retired school teacher discover how their The Starfish Throwers tells tale of these remarkable individuals and the unexpected challenges they face. Despite being constantly reminded that hunger is far too big for one person to solve, they persevere and see their impact ripple further than their individual actions
individual efforts to feed the poor ignite a movement in the fight against hunger. Award-winning chef Narayanan Krishnan, fighting against the caste system in India, quits his job to begin a life of cooking and hand-delivering fresh meals to hundreds of people in his hometown. Katie Stagliano’s planting of a single cabbage seedling when she was nine years old blossoms into Katie’s Krops, a non-profit with 73 gardens dedicated to ending hunger. Retired middle school teacher Allan Law battles personal health issues as he hand-delivers more than a thousand sandwiches nightly to the hungry in Minneapolis.

Schedule:

March 4: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
March 15: Winder Cultural Arts Center, Winder, GA
March 17: Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
March 19: Wallace State Community College, Hanceville, AL

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Danielle Beverly makes documentaries, often filming and recording sound as a solo filmmaker in the field. In 2014 she was awarded a BAVC National MediaMaker Fellowship for Old South. Beverly was Field Producer for Rebirth over its ten-year production. Her first feature Learning to Swallow premiered at Silverdocs and toured with Southern Circuit in 2005. Beverly is a Nohl Artists Fellowship, a Flaherty Seminar Fellowship and has received grants from the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, the Lucius & Eva Eastman Fund, NYSCA and the Puffin Foundation. She also teaches documentary filmmaking (most recently at Marquette University and The University of Notre Dame) and works as a documentary cameraperson.

When the Kappa Alpha (KA), the most elite of the white fraternities at the University of Georgia, buys and demolishes houses on one block in a historic African American neighborhood, the black community becomes agitated. For the blacks, the KA symbolizes the old south - an annual antebellum parade, the flying of the Confederate flag, and loud parties with beer bottles littering the neighborhood.

The arrival of the KA galvanizes Hope, a 30-year old African American woman. Hope grew up in the neighborhood. The lot that the KA purchased contains the home that she grew up in, that has housed her grandparents and great grandparents, and that her physician mother still lives in. Hope begins to organize her neighbors to fight for historical designation, with the goal of slowing, if not thwarting the path of gentrification of the community.

Yet, as in many Southern towns, centuries of racism in this community have created a thorny co-existence between blacks and whites, poor and wealthy. Thus the question viewers are left with: can change truly happen? Or do we simply keep our biases behind closed doors? Old South will open dialogue, revealing that there are often no easy solutions.

Schedule:

March 11: Indie Memphis, Memphis, TN
March 12: Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, Auburn University, Auburn, AL
March 14: Creative City Collaborative, Pompano Beach, FL
March 16: East Tennessee State University, Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, Johnson City, TN
March 18: Oxford College of Emory University, Oxford, GA
March 19: Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC

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Director and Producers Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling met over thirty years ago while working with world-renowned documentarian Les Blank. After successful collaborations with Blank over 20 years, Simon and Gosling pursued their own projects. Gosling directed and produced Blossoms of Fire a feature documentary on the Isthmus Zapotecs of southern Oaxaca. Simon produced and directed four independent documentaries including the award-winning Down an Old Road and My Canyonlands. Gosling and Simon re-united for This Ain’t No Mouse Music!  because of their love of music and cultures that Chris Strachwitz brought to the forefront to audiences around the world – and to share the vision of their longtime friend and colleague.

Roots music icon Chris Strachwitz is a detective of sounds, an archaeologist of deep American music, the antithesis of the corporate ‘mouse music’ that dominates the American ear. Born a German count, Strachwitz fled his homeland after WWII at 16. In the United States he discovered, and shared, a musical landscape that most Americans missed. For the last fifty years, he has carried his tape recorder from sharecrop shacks to roadside honkytonks, from cantina dives to wild Blues clubs. His recordings on his independent label, Arhoolie Records, introduced Cajun music from Louisiana, Tex-Mex from Texas, and Blues from the country into the living rooms of the world. These recordings revolutionized the sound of music around the world. In This Ain’t No Mouse Music! filmmakers Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling join Strachwitz for a hip-shaking stomp from New Orleans to Texas, Cajun country to Appalachia, as he continues his passionate quest for the musical soul of America. Features: Chris Strachwitz, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Flaco Jimenez, Michael Doucet, Richard Thompson, Santiago Jimenez, Jr., The Pine Leaf Boys, the Treme Brass Band, No Speed Limit, and others.

Schedule:

March 12: Madison-Morgan Cultural Center Madison GA
March 13: City of Hapeville Hapeville GA
March 14: The Tennessee Valley Art Association/Ritz Theatre Sheffield AL
March 17: Western Carolina University Cullowhee NC
March 19: Robinson Film Center Shreveport LA
March 20: Union College Barbourville KY