"Southern Stories" - Savannah & Recap

The last stop for Southern Stories was the beautiful Lucas Theatre in Savannah, Georgia. We ended our tour with a fantastic screening--beautiful spring weather, excellent projection and sound, an audience of over 100, and a lovely reception at a nearby restaurant. Thanks to Meaghan and all the staff at the Lucas for a great night!

Now that we've returned from our tour across the Southeast, here's a final accounting, of sorts of our Southern Circuit Tour that I think says it all:

5437 miles traveled
900 minutes of film screened
24 plates of soul food and bbq consumed
21 friends seen (including 8 not seen in 10+ years)
20 days of touring
18 news articles
12 screenings
11 official screenings
10 airports (including ATL six times)
9 art-related gifts received (4 books, 3 DVDs, 1VHS tape, and a painted egg)
8 combined hours of flight time
7 states
6 cars rented
5 dollars won at a casino in Biloxi, MS
4 pounds of crawfish eaten in one sitting
3 film workshops conducted with students
2 stops at musician gravesites
1 tornado avoided

If you'd like to stay in touch with us post-tour, please head on our over to the Self-Reliant Film website, where our adventures in regional, DIY filmmaking continue!

"Southern Stories" - Louisiana

After a great stop in Montgomery, we headed to Baton Rouge where a local host guided us to a hopping local spot where we indulged in four pounds of boiled crawfish!

The next evening we headed to our visually striking screening venue, the Manship Theatre, for our film event, followed by a reception with folks from the screening.

In addition to enjoying local fare like this gigantic muffaletta (above), we were privileged to screen for enthusiastic and engaged audiences, especially those we met on our second Louisiana stop: Alexandria.

After being a little road weary, there's nothing better than a place that feels like home...and that's exactly what we had there in Alexandria, thanks to our gracious and generous hosts, David and Nicole Holcombe.

Not only did they put us up and feed us, they also shared art of their own, including a collection of short stories and dozens of beautiful pisanki (pictured above).

We hope to make it back to these parts in the near future! Now we're off to our final tour destination: Savannah!

"Southern Stories" - Montgomery

Before we share our latest adventures from Lousiana, here's a belated post on our wonderful visit to Montgomery, Alabama.

If you haven't been following along over on our Self-Reliant Film blog, we've posted two photo essays of pictures of the many landscapes, meals, and sites we've enjoyed along the route. Check out Photo Essay: The Souths: Part I here and Part II here.

Perhaps our experience can best be summed up this way:

Three Reasons to Visit Montgomery

1) The Capri Theatre

This local gem features truly independent film programming, curated by the devoted general manager, Martin McCaffery. The day after our screening, Martin was happy to boast that our event out-grossed any other film playing in Montgomery that night!

2) The Lattice Inn

This B&B sponsors the Southern Circuit Tour and, wow, you couldn't ask for a more charming place to stay or a more welcoming host. You can relax like we did after a tour of the town in the Lattice Inn's backyard oasis, complete with swimming pool and hot tub!

3) Local Restaurants & Attractions

Our brief stay in Montgomery was colored by the tasty dishes we enjoyed at local restaurants near the Capri and a tour of downtown by our wonderful host. We also spent the better part of an afternoon touring the Civil Rights Museum and Memorial (pictured above), designed by Maya Lin.

More soon from Louisiana!

"Southern Stories" - The Carolinas

Over the past six days, Paul and I have been driving through the Carolinas, exploring some of the many Souths we blogged about last week. Our posts continue on the Self-Reliant Film blog, including a photo essay from Graceland and a short documentary video made at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum in Charleston, SC. Look for another photo essay later this week!

These travels allowed us to meet with enthusiastic film studies students before a screening at McKissick Theatre at Clemson University and also to have a pre-screening discussion with film production students at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee before a public event in their student center auditorium. Many thanks to our lovely hosts Jim, Aga, and Lori, who warmly received us for these screenings!

One of the many highlights of our trip so far took place on Friday night at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in Durham, NC. Despite the fact that we were competing with a Duke basketball game, the auditorium was completely packed. When the extra chairs ran out, folks seated themselves on the floor! The Q&A that followed was energetic, humorous, and poignant. We are grateful for such thoughtful and perceptive audiences.

The screening also benefited from the excellent projectionist, Mark, the lovely introduction given by our host, April, and the wine and cheese pre-screening reception so carefully organized by Lauren!

Tonight: the Capri Theatre in Montgomery!

"Southern Stories" - Charleston and Memphis

Paul and I are on the road, headed to Jackson, MS, for the fourth stop on our tour. Our text reflections on the first three stops on our tour (Johnson City, Charleston, and Memphis) can be found in this post on our Self-Reliant Film blog. We'll be adding more posts to the Self-Reliant site and regular updates to our Facebook page as we continue our criss-cross path through the Southeast.

We've been overwhelmed by the responses of audiences to our work in this first three stops and have enjoyed the hospitality of our great venue hosts--including Anita, Rebecca, Lizz, Mark & Erik--and also that of old friends we've reconnected with along the way. We hope these photos can convey a little bit of that experience:

Recap of "Southern Stories" - Johnson City

A young student reporter who attends ETSU wrote a lovely write-up of our screening on March 1st. Thanks for the kind words, Stacey!

Three Films, Two Filmmakers Inspire Aspiring Students
By Stacey Laughlin

Film students, professors, and general appreciators alike walked out of Culp Auditorium on March 1 awe-inspired after watching: Gina, An Actress, Age 29; Quick Feet, Soft Hands; and For Memories’ Sake. As a part of the Southern Circuit Tour hosted by ETSU’s own Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, students were able to view these independent films made by the Tennessean advocates for do-it-yourself filmmaking, Paul Harrill and Ashley Maynor.

“The way that Paul and I approach films is that we try to pick a film that we could make no matter what—if we had to use our own money or if we had a very small budget,” Maynor said. “Because then you’re not waiting on money to say whether or not you can make your art.”

After the showing of these three films, the audience participated in a question and answer session about technical aspects of the films. Following that was a reception for one-on-one conversations with the filmmakers.

“Last night's event and the Southern Circuit Tour as a whole is an incredible opportunity for filmmakers to connect with audiences, including students and aspiring filmmakers, and to have conversations about films and what they can offer,” Maynor said.

Maynor had some helpful suggestions for film students.“I think one of the best things you can have for making a film is someone who can give you honest and frank feedback,” Maynor said. “It’s really hard to get that kind of feedback because it’s usually kind of painful.”

Maynor went to film school for this reason. Improving as a filmmaker, as with every profession, is vitally important. Some filmmakers have more natural talent and some have to expose themselves to many different films to improve. “I think natural talent exists,” Maynor said. “But for the vast majority of us, we should see as many films as possible, and expose ourselves to many different styles and viewpoints.”

To achieve this, Maynor spent a year in France and a semester in Poland.
“It was the best thing I did. There are a lot of scholarships that can make it possible for just about anybody,” Maynor said. “Filmmaking has so many great filmmakers that have come before us. I think it’s important for us to study those masters and see what they did well.”

Along with studying and honing their abilities, Maynor suggested that film students could benefit from asking the Rilke question. “One thing I have my students do is read Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet,” Maynor said. “In that letter he says, ‘If you were denied the ability to write, would you die?’ I think you have to have that kind of passion. If you have that, then I think you’ll figure the rest out.”

"Southern Stories" - Johnson City, TN

Paul Harrill and I have worked together since 2005 and on our leg of the Southern Circuit tour we are screening three of our shorts films, which have screened at over 40 film festivals on 5 continents. We are thrilled to be a part of the Southern Circuit this year and look forward to screening our work in 11 cities over the next three weeks!

We make films together under the banner of Self-Reliant Film--that's our production company. The name self-reliant says something about the way we work as filmmakers: we live and make our films in the South with primarily local cast and crew and we aim to tell stories that reflect our home as we know it, which isn't the way our region is always represented on the silver screen. You can read more about our ideas about self-reliant filmmaking and the three films we're touring with on our website.

Paul and I kicked off our Southern Circuit tour last night with a screening in our native Tennessee. We were hosted by Anita and Heidi of East Tennessee State University's Mary B. Martin School of the Arts. Anita, a printmaker, fell in love with our hand letter-pressed posters from Knoxville-based Yee-Haw Industries. We were equally impressed with the Martin School's season program: In addition to hosting the Southern Circuit tour, they had an impressive lineup of guests scheduled throughout the school year, including one of our favorite writers, James Elkins.

Any trip to TN isn't complete without a taste of the local barbecue, so, after dinner with our host at Firehouse Restaurant, we headed to the screening. Outside the auditorium, ETSU's burgeoning Film Studies Club was recruiting new members before and after our screening. Paul agreed to cover their table during the screening so that the film studies students could go in and watch the movies. Check them out on Facebook!

During our screening, which was the first time we'd screened all three of these films together on one program, we were interviewed by a student journalist and photographed for the university newspaper.

The films were warmly received and were followed by a nice Q&A and, after that, a reception. We met with a variety of folks, including some cool filmmakers who teach at ETSU. We were lucky enough to stay with some friends in nearby Kingsport, TN, for the evening before heading out to our next destination: Charleston!

Meet Ashley Maynor and Paul Harrill

 Welcome Ashley Maynor and Paul Harrill to the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers! Their first screening is today, March 1, 2011, at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. The show starts at 7:00 p.m., so don’t miss a moment!

Paul Harrill’s narrative films and documentary videos have screened on five continents at film festivals, museums and on television. Harrill’s work has been supported by the Independent Television Service, the Aperture Film Grant, and by residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Ashley Maynor is an award-winning documentarian whose films and new media works have been exhibited around the country. Maynor's creative work, outreach and research have been supported by the Southern Humanities Media Fund, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her most recent documentary, For Memories’ Sake, was awarded the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2009 University Film and Video Association Competition.