We’ve just posted a new Mississippi Story, a collection of excerpts from Dr. Andy Harper’s Fall 2016 Documenting the South in Film course. The student films tell stories about education, violence, activism, art, race, sexuality, and music in contemporary Mississippi.
Southern Documentary Project Producer / Director John Rash has just returned from a week of cultural exchanges and discussions as an invited presenter and teacher at Photo Beijing, the largest annual celebration of international photography in Beijing, China.
The Southern Documentary Project, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, has a new documentary film titled Flag Flap Over Mississippi by director Rex Jones that explores tensions around the divisive Mississippi state flag. There will be a premiere screening and discussion of the film at 6pm on Wednesday, October 25 at the Overby Center for Journalism and Politics on the UM campus. A discussion of the film will follow, with UM professor Ralph Eubanks moderating a discussion with Starke Miller and Carlos Moore, who appear in the film. The screening and discussion are free and open to the public.
Last week, we hosted a three-day documentary workshop for 11 incoming and current MA students in Southern Studies and students in the new MFA in Documentary Expression program. Documentarians Andy Harper, John Rash, and Rex Jones of the Southern Documentary Project and Ava Lowrey and Sara Wood of the Southern Foodways Alliance taught the workshop.
John Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Art from Duke University in 2014. He has worked as a freelance photographer and college instructor for more than 15 years and comes to the University of Mississippi after spending the past three years in Shanghai, China.
Dr. D’Andra Orey of Jackson State University gave a Brown Bag talk on Wednesday, April 12 as part of the Center’s Radical South Brown Bag Series, presented in partnership with the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies. Documentarian Chris Colbeck interviewed him about his research, and you can watch the interview here.
Students in Dr. Andy Harper’s Southern Studies 537: Documenting the South in Film completed short films as a final project for the class in the Fall of 2016. Watch excerpts from each film below.
Shake ‘Em on Down: The Blues According to Fred McDowell, a SouthDocs film by Joe York and Scott Barretta, was selected to be part of the South Arts Southern Circuit, which screens films across the region. The circuit just kicked off, and Joe will be attending many of the screenings.
We’ve just published a new story as part of the Center’s documentary website Mississippi Stories. In this short film, Rex Jones of the Southern Documentary Project visits barbershops in Greenwood and Greenville to profile a new public health program in Mississippi.
Rex Jones of the Southern Documentary Project documented the 1,010 mile 2014 trek of Mark Hainds along the U.S. – Mexico border, from El Paso to Boca Chica beach on the Gulf of Mexico. You can read an interview with Hainds here. Hainds and Jones encountered border-crossers, drug smugglers, cowboys, the Border Patrol, and a range of opinions on immigration and law enforcement.