Film Category: Thematic

The Rough South of Larry Brown
Gary Hawkins

Gary Hawkins’s beautiful Rough South series interweaves documentary footage with fictional adaptations of authors’ work, establishing an innovative approach to the documentary genre. After his…

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Tomorrow
Joseph Anthony II

Beautifully scripted by Horton Foote, Tomorrow tells a story of love, loss, generosity and perseverance. In Mississippi, a helpful, quiet farmer (Duvall) befriends a pregnant…

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Richard Wright: Black Boy
Madison Davis Lacy

Born in 1908, the son of a Mississippi sharecropper, Wright lived in a world where Jim Crow was more than a proper noun; it was…

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John Huston — War Stories
Midge Mackenzie

“Making a documentary,” John Huston says, “wasn’t really any different than making any other film except that the material reveals itself, tells its own story.”…

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The Valley
Dan Reed

Kosovo 1998. Dan Reed captures the essence of war and in doing so exposes the fragility of civilization. In a beautiful land of rolling hills…

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Children in War
Alan Raymond, Susan Raymond

Examining the effects of war and terrorism on the children of Bosnia, Israel, Rwanda and Northern Ireland, this story is told by the children. These…

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The War Game
Peter Watkins

Originally produced for television, this film was banned from TV broadcast. Later released theatrically by the BFI, this incredible story visualizes what could happen immediately…

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Clear Pictures
Charles Guggenheim, Center for Documentary Studies

In his own uniquely Southern voice, Reynolds Price tells of his heritage, the people and places that influenced his life and made him who he…

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Seventeen
Joel DeMott, Jeff Kreines

Inspired by the studies of Robert and Helen Lynd in 1929 and 1935, this classic series explores both the continuity and the change embodied in…

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Dream Deceivers
David Van Taylor

After James Vance narrowly survived his suicide attempt, he—and his born-again Christian mother—insisted heavy metal music led him astray. Their lawsuit against rock group Judas…

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