VCU Southern Film Festival to focus on race relations, civil rights at eighth annual event

The VCU Southern Film Festival will return for its eighth year at the Virginia Historical Society September 7th through the 9th, it was announced this week.

Founded in 2010, the film festival explores how the distinctiveness of the South has been portrayed on screen and brings together films and those involved in their making with constructive commentary.

This year’s films center around race relations and justice and include Do Not Resist, an inside look at the protests in Ferguson, Missouri following the death of Michael Brown, Loving, which explores the fight for interracial marriage in Virginia, and more.

The full schedule follows below.

Thursday, September 7th:

Do Not Resist
6:30 PM in the Robins Family Forum at VHS
Part of the Created Equal Film Series
Free and open to the public

The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival winner for Best Documentary, Do Not Resist (2016, 72 minutes) begins on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown. The film explores the rapid militarization of police departments in the United States. Special guests will comment after the film.

Saturday, September 9th:

Double feature: See Loving and An Outrage for $12 (VHS members $8) – or for free with VCU ID.

Loving
3:00 PM in the Robins Family Forum at VHS
Tickets $8 (VHS Members $5), free to VCU students, faculty, & staff with valid VCU ID.

From acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols, Loving (2016, 2 hours 3 minutes) celebrates the real-life courage and commitment of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, who married and spent nine years fighting for the right to live as a family in Virginia. Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry. Historian Peter Wallenstein, Ph.D., professor of history at Virginia Tech, and Amelia Zontini, lead set costumer, will comment after the film.

An Outrage
6:00 PM in the Robins Family Forum at VHS
Tickets $8 (VHS Members $5), free to VCU students, faculty, & staff with valid VCU ID.

Filmed on location in six states, An Outrage (2016, 34 minutes) examines lynching in the American South. Bolstered by the memories and perspectives of descendants, community activists, and scholars, this unusual historical documentary seeks to educate and reflect upon a long-hidden past. Filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren, and Kimberly Wilson, who appears in the film, will comment. John T. Kneebone, Ph.D., professor of history at VCU, will moderate the discussion.

Learn more and purchase tickets online here.