REEL SOUTH

Women from Louisville, Kentucky, discuss the mystery behind a famous photograph and whether they could be the girl from the iconic image.

Laurie Ezzell Brown, publisher and editor of the Canadian Record, covers the groundbreaking of a new nursing home and discusses the importance of keeping the weekly newspaper alive.

There is only one doctor in rural Clay County, Georgia, one of the state’s poorest and unhealthiest counties. After several years of working without pay, she can no longer volunteer full-time and faces the possibility of closing her clinic. Committed to her community, she seeks to continue serving her patients amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, dwindling support, and broken promises.

Dr. Kinsell, the only doctor in Clay County, Georgia, meets with a patient struggling to quit smoking.

Dr. Kinsell runs a COVID vaccine clinic for elderly residents of Clay County.

A young woman hosts an outdoor potluck and describes how her life has been impacted by thyroid disease caused by pollution in her hometown in rural Appalachia.

Georgetown University sold hundreds of enslaved people to stave off bankruptcy, scattering families across the South, never to see each other again. With the help of DNA databases, their descendants are reconnecting six generations later. “Finding Us” is a portrait of four descendants who are using their unique talents to regrow the family trees felled nearly two centuries ago.

Clinton Bagley listens to an interview with Daisy Greene where she recalls a devastating flood that damaged Greenville, Mississippi in 1927.

Three community members in a rural Appalachian town experience illness after exposure to contamination from a nearby US Army Ammunition Plant. Due to the open burning of waste, the facility is considered the largest polluter in Virginia, releasing millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air, soil, and water each year. The film incorporates contaminants from the facility into 16mm film.

A Marshallese Nuclear Justice Event in Springdale, Arkansas commemorates 76 years of exile for former residents of Bikini Atoll, which was used for nuclear testing by the US government.

Clinton Bagley revisits his first interview from Mississippi’s Washington County Oral History Program. Amongst the files, one piece of material sticks out, the catalyst for the whole program. In a conversation he recorded in 1975 with Daisy Greene, a retired school teacher from his hometown, we learn about a devastating flood, cruel systems of oppression, and the voices that define the Delta.

Kevin and Negest, descendants of enslaved people who were sold by Georgetown University, explain the dark history behind the renowned institution.