Directed by Travis Wilkerson
United States • 2018 • 90 mins. • In English
“An audacious meditation on conscience and responsibility, on race in the American South, as well as a highly personal exhumation of family secrets that may include a double murder. Wilkerson begins with a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird, but reminds us that Harper Lee’s story was fiction, ‘whereas mine is true. . . . In 1946, my great-grandfather murdered a black man named Bill Spann and got away with it.’ His movie is a detective story with important roles played by the filmmaker’s aunt (a Southern secessionist), by a 31-year-old local activist named Rosa Parks, by the rap song “Hell You Talmbout” by Janelle Monáe, and by the still-resonant words of a Phil Ochs song that memorializes white activist William Moore.”—Film Forum.
Filmography: Machine Gun or Typewriter? (2015), Far from Afghanistan (2012), Who Killed Cock Robin? (2005)
Reviews: Cinema Scope, The New Yorker, Artforum, Criterion Daily
Interviews: Little White Lies
Genres: Documentary
Appears in: 41st Portland International Film Festival, PIFF 41: Documentary Views