VIDEO: Richmond Filmmakers Premiere Lynching Documentary Locally

Two local filmmakers premiere their documentary about southern lynching at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center next week – and they’ve added a second night to accommodate demand.

“An Outrage: a Documentary about Lynching in the American South” will show Monday and Tuesday at the museum and features Richmond area residents. The screening will precede a discussion with Kimberly Wilson, whose ancestor, John Mitchell Jr., is profiled in the film. Mitchell was an editor of the Richmond Planet, an African-American newspaper that railed against lynchings in the South.

AN OUTRAGE: Trailer from Field Studio on Vimeo.

The film had its world premiere at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. in March and will be distributed by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

More from the press release:

An Outrage was filmed at lynching sites in six states – Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia – with descendants of victims, community activists and historians. The film highlights the oft-hidden history of lynching and its resonance today. Jonathan Holloway, dean of Yale College and an historian of the Jim Crow era, notes in the film, “I promise you, once you start taking in the ‘unofficial histories,’ the official history doesn’t look quite so accurate anymore.”

Filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren were both raised in Virginia, and their first film, “That World is Gone: Race and Displacement in a Southern Town,” won the Audience Award for Best Short Documentary at the 2010 Virginia Film Festival.
Ayers and Warren founded their production company, Field Studio, in Harlem in 2012 and moved it to Richmond in 2014. Last year they completed a multimedia project called Richmond Justice, interviewing residents affected by or working in law, prisons and justice initiatives.

Registration for the second night is open at the Black History Museum’s website.

“An Outrage: A Documentary About Lymching in the South” screens at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia on Monday, April 17 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and Tuesday, April 18 (check site for times).

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