"Eating Alabama" at SXSW

I'm very pleased to announce that "Eating Alabama" will finally have its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin in March! Four years in the making, I don't know that I had a very good idea of what this day would feel like. But now that it's finally here, I'm thrilled! I have to keep this feeling in mind when I'm in the middle of those dark nights of the soul making a film... Hope to see you Austin!

Some recent production stills

I'm busy working on a documentary about the lives of Clifford and Virginia Durr for Alabama Public Television. In the past few months, my cinematographer Justin Gaar and I have traveled around the south to film interviews with a variety of Southern historians. The story of the Durrs is a remarkable one, and I'm excited to be working on a film about such principled and admirable Southerners. They represent a kind of transformation narrative that has all the hallmarks of an engaging and emotional drama. It's likely that you've never heard of the Durrs, so if you're interested you can read Cliff's Wikipedia entry here and Virginia's here.

In doing research the past few months and reading their letters and other writing, I've come to identify with them both, but especially with Virginia. Moving back to Montgomery in the early 50s, Cliff and Virginia quickly found themselves involved in the early stirrings of what would become the Civil Rights Movement. Writing to a friend about her feelings on returning South, Virginia said, "The only time I like it is when I'm trying to change it." I've certainly felt that way myself from time to time...

I've started a Twitter account for the film where I'll be periodically posting quotes from Cliff or Virginia and occassional updates on production. Please follow along if you'd like @Virginia_Durr. Incidentally, you can follow me on Twitter @andrewebeckgrace 

Interviewing Clay Carson, Memphis

Tearing apart a hotel room for the interview...The legal historian Laura Edwards at her home in Chapel Hill.

The dean of Southern history, Dan Carter, at his home outside Brevard, North Carolina.

Justin shooting on a dolly in Wilson Library, UNC.The original oral history interview tapes from Virginia Durr, 1974

After the Storm

I've been working on a new interactive documentary about the aftermath of the April 27th Tornados with a group of former students. We're gathering stories from residents across the city to tell an inteweaving narrative about what happens after the storm. We're interested in following the story for a few years before releasing what I believe will be an innovate new kind of documentary. We'll be working with the new media firm Bombay Flying Club to help develop the site, and I've secured development funding from ITVS Interactive to help us along. We hope to release the project in April of 2013, 2 years after the storm. In the meantime, we're using a simple blogger site to release some of the early character pieces. I've posted the first four below.

Tuscaloosa Runs This.

I'm very honored to have a piece in a new anthology of Alabama writers writing about the tornado that passed through Tuscaloosa two weeks ago. I hope you'll read and donate. More about the storm and the rebirth of our city in the coming weeks, when we've had a chance to figure it out a little more.

Eating Los Angeles

So I'm just back from about a week in LA working with my old friend Bartley Powers. Bartley and I went to college together and he helped edit my first film during my senior year. While I was living in Wyoming, Bartley came out one summer and together we made a feature doc about the annual reenactments of Custer's Last Stand called "Dying With Custer." It was great fun, and the film itself was pretty good for a first outing. If you'd like, you can see a trailer of the movie here. Ever since DWC, Bartley and I have consulted with each other on our various projects and have always kept in touch. Bartley lives and works in LA as an editor of various short form and long form content. So when I was working through some structural issues with "Eating Alabama" it seemed natural to hop on a plane and visit. We got some great work done and he was instrumental in giving me a fresh perspective on the material and helping me see it from another angle. I also visited my friends Sally and Andrea, both filmmakers involved in their own nonfiction work. Check out Sally's new film "Deep Down" on PBS's Independent Lens this season, and Andrea is currently working on her own doc about the lives of a group of Latina actresses trying to make it in LA. They were both super helpful to talk with, and it was nice to talk to other filmmakers about their own process - something I don't have a lot of opportunity to do in Alabama. Of course, we also ate some great food...

Below is a photo Bartly took of me working with my interminable stack of index cards - representing scenes, themes, narration, stills, etc. Documentary editing can sometimes be like trying to solve a huge jigsaw puzzle. You've got all (or most) of the pieces, but for them to tell the most affecting story, you've got to arrange them just right. It's a long and sometimes agonizing process, but it's ultimately rewarding to see it all coming together.