The Warren County Public Library, in a partnership with South Arts, will be bringing a series of documentaries to the Capitol Arts. The South Arts website explains that “South Arts is a nonprofit regional arts organization empowering artists, organizations, and communities, and increasing access to arts and culture.” Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, South Arts works in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Agencies in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
The documentaries that will be shown are a part of the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers. These documentaries connect the filmmakers and their impactful works with audiences throughout the South.
Many of the screening partners, including the Capitol Arts Theatre, will have in-person screenings for their communities. Due to COVID-19’s resurgence, the filmmakers will not be touring this Fall, but a pre-recorded 30-minute conversation will follow each screening, including a discussion of the subject matter and the filmmaking process. All the films will be available online for attendees from each Screening Partner venue for four days.
Make plans to attend these screenings at the Capitol Arts Theatre on Fountain Square in Bowling Green this fall.
Stateless:
Screening: Tuesday, September 14, 6p.m. at the Capitol
The film will be available to view online from September 12-15 for those unable to attend the in-person screening.
This film is about the Dominican Republic’s anti-black policies. Tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army in 1937. In 2013, anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, were stripped of citizenship by the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court. This left more than 200,000 people stateless, without a homeland, identity or nationality. A young attorney, Rosa Iris, mounted a grassroots campaign that challenged electoral corruption and advocated for social justice.
To create this documentary that traces present-day politics through the complex tributaries of history, director and producer Michele Stephenson drew from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human-rights attorney. This documentary was filmed using light and shadow contrasting and gritty hidden-camera footage to reveal the depths of institutionalized oppression.
At The Ready:
Screening: Tuesday, September 28, 6p.m. at the Capitol
The film will be available to view online from September 26-29 for those unable to attend the in-person screening.
Director and producer Maisie Crow created this documentary about students at the Horizon High School in El Paso, Texas, who train at one of the region’s largest law enforcement educational programs only to discover that their dream jobs may be at odds with the people they love and with the truth.
Not Going Quietly:
Screening: Tuesday, October 12, 6p.m. at the Capitol
The film will be available to view online from October 10-13 for those unable to attend the in-person screening.
Director Nicholas Bruckman and producer Amanda Roddy created this documentary about Ady Barkan, a 32-year-old father and activist. Barkan was diagnosed with ALS and given four years to live. A recording of a chance confrontation between Barkan and Senator Jeff Flake on an airplane went viral on social media, prompting Barkan to go on a cross-country tour, fighting for healthcare justice with his last breaths. This documentary and Ady’s actions offer a source of hope for the future as a result of collective action and speaking truth to power.
And So I Stayed:
Screening: Tuesday, October 26, 6p.m. at the Capitol
The film will be available to view online from October 24-27 for those unable to attend the in-person screening.
Natalie Pattillo and Daniel A. Nelson co-directed and co-produced this award-winning documentary about survivors of abuse who are spending years behind bars after fighting for their lives. It addresses the passage of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) on May 14, 2019 and the hope it may provide to abuse survivors who have been given harsh prison sentences for killing their abusers. The driving force behind this new law is Kim Dadou Brown, an activist and formerly incarcerated survivor. Nikki Addimando and Tanisha Davis, both mothers who have been ripped away from their families, hope this new law will give them a chance to return to their lives outside of prison.
Duty-Free:
The film will be available to view online from November 7-10 for those unable to attend the in-person screening.
No screening is scheduled for Duty-Free at this time.
In this documentary, Director Sian-Pierre takes his 75-year-old immigrant mother on a bucket-list adventure after she is fired without cause from her lifelong job as a hotel housekeeper. He also follows her struggles to find work, and in doing so reveals the economic insecurity that is shaping not only his mother’s life, but the lives of an entire generation.
-submitted by Warren County Public Library
