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By Lanita Withers Goins, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-3890
Posted 10-23-09
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Though the 2009 Cucalorus Film Festival will be held in Wilmington, the event will have a decided Spartan flavor.
A sextet of UNCG films – four by graduate students, one by an alumnus and one by an associate professor – will be shown at the annual film festival, which will run Nov. 11-15. The festival is open to the public. For a full schedule and ticket information, visit http://www.cucalorus.org.
The festival is a “showcase in the Southeast for all kinds of documentaries and feature-length feature films,” said Dr. Michael Frierson, an associate professor of media studies, whose film “FBI KKK” will be shown. “It’s pretty exciting to show at something that well known in a town that is a film industry town like Wilmington.”
The UNCG films showing during the festival are:
• “FBI KKK” (Michael Frierson, 82 minutes, documentary). “FBI KKK” is a story of two southerners and their struggle to come to grips with the changing South in the 1960s. The film is a personal documentary about the filmmaker’s father, Dargan Frierson, an FBI agent in Greensboro, and the intersection of his life with George Dorsett, the highest-ranking member of the United Klans of America, who secretly provided information to the FBI under a program called COINTELPRO: WHITE HATE.
• “Sylvia & George” (Cara Clark, six minutes, documentary). For nearly 60 years, Sylvia Gray sold furniture, army surplus and thrift at 606 and 608 S. Elm St. in Greensboro. For Sylvia, collecting objects became more important than selling them. Sylvia's grandson, George Scheer, has re-imagined the space as Elsewhere Artist Collaborative, where artists create installations from the store's inventory. These new works aren't for sale either.
• “Americatown” (Kenneth Price, 77 minutes, narrative). In this imaginative work, Americatown is known for locally-made, above-ground cars, an almost infinite variety of breakfast cereals, and unbridled, bald-faced greatness. That is, until one cataclysmic spilled cup of coffee sets off a chain of events destined to test the gumption of Americatown. Can the Americatonians pull together and weather the madness; or is Americatown fated to crumble like so many tiny empires before it?
• “The Late Mr. Mokun Williams” (Kenneth Price, five minutes, narrative). In this pre-technological fable, a handwritten letter by a frantic African girl on the run mirrors a modern day spam email. Her urgent letter ends up in the mailbox of a southern farmer, launching him on a transatlantic mission to save her.
• “Balance” (Debra Sea, four minutes, experimental short film). Life is about balance. This film explores that theme.
• “Sapsucker” (Christopher Holmes, 12 minutes, experimental short film). The tale of a man on the warpath to track down and dispatch a rare woodpecker wreaking havoc on his house.
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