Prom Night in Mississippi
http://www.hour.ca/film/film.aspx?iIDArticle=18806
Mississippi burning
Melora Koepke
December 3rd, 2009
Morgan Freeman foots the bill for a town's first integrated prom in
Canadian doc Prom Night in Mississippi
--
Paul Saltzman, the Torontonian director of Prom Night in Mississippi,
first visited the Deep South in 1965, when he drove down from Canada
to work on registering voters as part of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was assaulted and jailed for 10 days.
When he returned in 2007, he met Charleston's most famous resident,
the actor Morgan Freeman, who was offering to foot the bill for an
integrated prom in his town. The school board refused. When he
offered again in 2008, they accepted, and Saltzman and his wife and
producing partner, Patricia Aquino, moved down south to film the
first integrated prom, ever, in Charleston.
Prom Night in Mississippi examines heavy-hitting issues of entrenched
racism, tradition and human rights in the Deep South. Though his film
examines a serious subject in an accessible way, its heavy-hitting
themes aren't the only thing he wants people to understand. More than
anything, he says, the film is a lot of fun: He tells of screenings
in Toronto where the audience has applauded and a class full of
high-school students gave the film a standing ovation.
"I want people to know that this is entertaining, intimate, alive and
real. The kids are terrific and so is the music [which includes
tracks by Beyoncé et al.]," says Saltzman.
Of course, Canadians might feel that Prom Night in Mississippi
expresses an outdated way of life that doesn't affect us, but
Saltzman points out that we aren't all that disconnected from the
dark heart of American racism.
"We may think that we're better than that; I don't think we're exempt
at all," says Saltzman. "Up here, we have our hate groups as well:
There is a Nazi Party of Canada, there is a Canadian presence of the
KKK and the Aryan Nation. The story of Prom Night in Mississippi is a
specific story of a small town and high school dance but it's also a
universal issue about how we hold other people in our hearts."
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
