Taking Flight at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Nest-supported filmmakers are taking flight at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the oldest all-documentary festival in North America. Its 27th year will kick off on Friday, October 19 and run to Saturday, October 27 in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Here are the Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films, filmmakers, and friends to see in Hot Springs.
Blowin’ Up, directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal
Monday, October 22 at 10:00AM, Cinema One.
Blowin’ Up looks at sex work, prostitution, and human trafficking through the lens of New York State’s criminal justice system. The film captures the growing pains of our nation’s first human trafficking intervention court in Queens, New York, and how we define trafficking and prostitution from many different perspectives: the criminal justice system, the social welfare system, and, most importantly, the women and girls who are at the center of it all.
The Devil We Know, directed by Stephanie Soechtig
Wednesday, October 24 at 10:00 AM, Cinema Two.
Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical—now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans—into the drinking water supply.
Roll Red Roll, directed by Nancy Schwartzman
Saturday, October 20 at 2:30 PM, Cinema Two.
In small-town Ohio, at a pre-season football party, a horrible incident took place. What transpired would garner national attention and result in the sentencing of two key offenders. As amateur crime blogger Alex Goddard uncovers disturbing evidence on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, documenting the assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team, questions linger around the collusion of teen and adult bystanders. Roll Red Roll explores the complex motivations of both perpetrators and bystanders in this story, to unearth the attitudes at the core of their behavior.
United Skates, directed by Dyana Winkler & Tina Brown (2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative)
Friday, October 26 at 7:00 PM, Cinema One.
When America’s last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture–-one that has remained undiscovered by the mainstream for generations, yet has given rise to some of the world’s greatest musical talent.
The Changing Same, directed by 2016 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster*
Monday, October 22 at 5:00 PM, Cinema One.
“On October 26, 1934, Claude Neal was brutally lynched by a group of white men who stormed the county jail in Brewton Alabama where Neal was being held after being accused of the murder of a 20 year-old white woman, Lola Cannady. Every October 26, Lamar Wilson, a native of Marianna, Florida who now teaches English at the University of Alabama Birmingham, comes home to run a very particular marathon to commemorate the lynching of Claude Neal. Lamar retraces the route Claude Neal took on that fateful night where he ended up hanged on the courthouse grounds.”**
This Is Home, directed by Chicken & Egg Board of Directors member Alexandra Shiva
Tuesday, October 23 at 1:00 PM, Cinema One.
“A stirring, empathetic documentary chronicling the travails of four Syrian refugee families as they arrive in Baltimore with just eight months’ time allowed to find jobs, learn English, and adapt to life in the U.S. when the sudden 2017 travel ban imposed by the Trump administration further complicates their situation.”***
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support The Changing Same directly but supported director Michèle Stephenson during her Breakthrough year, as well as Michèle and Joe’s VR project Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project, currently in production.
**Synopsis courtesy of Rada Film Group.
***Synopsis courtesy of Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
Congratulations to all and see you in Arkansas!