Danielle Beverly from Old South visits Presbyterian College

From filmmaker Danielle Beverly of Old South:

Presbyterian College in rural Clinton SC hosted the final #‎SouthernCircuit stop of Old South. The college was born from the ruin of The Civil War and has deep Southern roots. It was the largest audience yet, for the tour. Students just kept packing the tiny room. Several football players even carried in a couch and plopped it down right in front.

What had seemed like a sleepy campus when I arrived at 5pm, now appeared to have 20% of the student body in the room. Students had been buzzing about the film I was told, and they were ready.

Many members of the Greek community attended - including a large number of KA fraternity members - as well as non-fraternity/sorority students. The conversation was at times tough, but it yielded a deeper understanding for all. It spoke well about the students that they were able to share truthfully to one another about how race and complications around legacy, impact their personal and campus lives.

Myself and faculty continued to talk with students one on one, for hours after the lights came up. A success. Special thanks to Dr. Terry Barr, Professor of English, who arranged a dinner with a young KA member, a student athlete, and several faculty members before the screening. He also introduced the film, as seen in the photo.

As this is my final blog post, I want to use it to thank Southern Circuit and South Arts for all that they do. This is the most meaningful way to screen my documentaries. As a filmmaker and as a professor, I am committed to the power that film can bring to open minds, spur difficult conversations, and touch audiences, particularly students. Southern Circuit is essential.

...until next time, with the next film....

Danielle Beverly from Old South visits Oxford College

From Filmmaker Danielle Beverly of Old South: 

Oxford College is the small, rural outpost an hour away from big sister Emory University in urban Atlanta. With just around 900 students, it’s a lovely, tiny, but bustling campus. My host Dr. Margaret “Molly” McGehee, arranged a dinner prior to the screening, and as we walked through the student cafeteria I could see and hear how connected students were with one another. I smiled as I caught snippets of their animated conversations (and jealously eyed their frozen yogurt machine.)

Dr. McGehee invited several faculty, staff and students to a small dinner before the screening. Talk quickly turned to Greek and race issues on their campus, and other colleges. No small talk was exchanged. Rather each of the women took a turn to share illuminating personal stories. A stranger and their guest, I was grateful for such generous conversation, which provided me salient insight into their college and wider experiences, in advance of the post-screening Q&A.

Sated by meaningful conversation, and a healthy (yay) salmon dinner, we took this photo before heading to the screening.

I didn’t quite believe my host Molly McGehee, when she warned that the huge gymnasium theatre would be pretty full. But she was right. I took this photo, as folks still had 10 minutes to arrive.

Oxford College is special in that it is reserved for freshman and sophomores only. It provides a focused, intensive liberal arts education that primes first and second year students for the move later to Emory’s more sprawling campus in Atlanta. This made me all the more impressed with the deep and sometimes heated discussion about racial dynamics, after the screening of Old South. I asked for “real talk” and these underclassmen brought it.  Students felt empowered to share strongly held opinions, and then those impressions were refuted and challenged by others. In this vigorous back and forth exchange, they dialogued intelligently and shared passionately with each other, even as they respected one another. This was, by far, one of the best post-screening conversations of the Old South tour. I learned so much from this student body.

A week later, I received an email from an Oxford student: “Black Student Alliance had a discussion on Race and Greek Life during our general meeting and many of our talking points came from the film and Q&A afterward.”  I had hoped the film would resonate with students, and it appears it has at Oxford College. Greatly humbled.

Danielle Beverly from Old South visits East Tennessee State University

From Filmmaker Danielle Beverly of Old South: 

East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN was the 4th stop for Old South on the #SouthernCircuit. I was greeted by the nicest Budget car rental agent ever and mountains in the distance. I made my way to the posh Carnegie Hotel conveniently located right across the street from the campus.

My screening was not until the next evening, which gave time to have a great dinner. I chose Café Lola where server Jamie could not have been more lovely. Southern hospitality, stories about family, and what’s important in life, were shared. He greeted all guests with the same warmth. The food was super delicious.

The next day I was able to do two class visits where I found out that ETSU has a bluegrass studies program! I spoke to a large writing class, and also watched student work, providing one on one feedback. Engaging with students is one of the best things about the #SouthernCircuit.

ETSU went all out for the screening. They created amazing giveaways – packets of seeds to promote “Plant Seeds of Understanding”. Also “Hope”, “Kindness” and “Friendship”. I grabbed a few to give to Karen, the gardener in “Old South,” and my mom, who I would be seeing at The Atlanta Film Festival screening later that week.

A special shout out to the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts faculty here, who all worked to promote the event, and make it incredibly well attended.

A highly diverse audience came and dialogued – community elders, students, fraternity members, faculty, and a variety of people and organizations from the town including Umoja. As often happens, two different people teared up as they shared with me their impressions one on one, in the reception afterwards. Old South opens up memories for audience members, and an eagerness to take steps forward.

  

One great moment was when a terrific young man from Sigma Ep came forward to ask about the film, and what he and his fraternity could do to engage in significant community service in the off campus neighborhood where they live. I encouraged him to talk with the community, ask their needs, and truly listen. I look forward to what emerges.

Danielle Beverly from Old South visits Creative City Collective

From Filmmaker Danielle Beverly from Old South: 

Pompano Beach FL was the 3rd stop on the Southern Circuit with my documentary Old South. The film was scheduled at The Creative City Collective's BaCA Arts space, a cool and inviting gallery space.

Audience members were greeted at the door by the preteen daughter of host Caroline Breder-Watts, who offered cookies, snacks, and information about upcoming events at a welcome table.  It's never too early to get young people interested in the arts, and she was enlisted to be the ambassador. Caroline's whole family were there to welcome me, and the attendees.

Caroline is Executive Director of the Arts Radio Network and is also Pledge Producer/Radio Host at local public radio station WLRN. All day I'd been listening to NPR and they were in the midst of a committed pledge drive. I was thus so grateful for all she did to organize the screening, as it was crunch time for her!

The gallery was turned into a small viewing space, with chairs and a large flat screen television. A diverse crowd of about 15 all stayed to have what was such a thoughtful and engaged conversation that we forgot to take pictures!  Many people there were returning audience members who'd been to see The New Black the previous month at BaCA Arts.  They were now Southern Circuit devotees, and came to my screening to check out what was next on the tour. :-)

One older man offered his experience about how benevolence can be both useful and transforming, but also potentially reinforcing of power dynamics - a tricky balance, and one to be mindful of.  This is exactly the type of meaningful shares that come from the Southern Circuit post-screening discussions.  Insight and context comes directly from the audience - and TO the others in the audience. Sometimes I barely need to speak!  The conversation is happening among those in the room.

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.

Danielle Beverly from Old South visits Indie Memphis

Filmmaker Danielle Beverly of Old South:

My first stop on The Southern Circuit with Old South was Memphis TN. A dear pal paired me with her Aunt Bess to host me in her Southern memorabilia-filled home. I walked in and was greeted by Monique LeMannequin. Monique and I set a spell and I told her that I was excited to screen that evening hosted by the local film society Indie Memphis. Monique was a great listener, but didn't say much.

Aunt Bess was a gas. After ferrying me to the theatre to do a tech check with great Blu Ray projection at Malco's Studio on the Square, we then hit the town.

Flashback for vintage clothes, the zoo to see the pandas, The Stax Museum, and great food at a Mexican tapas joint across the street.

Stax was a personal mecca, as I worked for years in a record store. This was a meaningful opportunity to learn more about this important place, and the people who made its history, including Otis Redding who left us so young, but with an incredible catalog of music to enjoy forever.

The screening itself was wonderful. A goodly sized audience who had great shares and questions. We continued the conversation out in the lobby. One of my favorite reflections so far from the tour came from a man who offered his one sentence insight: "From kudzu to can do!" Might have to use that as the official logline. Or make t-shirts!

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