Southern Rites
Short film Completed 2015
Director
Gillian Laub
Doc Society helped with
Impact
Runtime: 87 minutes
Follow the film
After a NY Times article exposes still-segregated proms in Montgomery Country, Georgia, a town wrestles with racism that goes far beyond its school dance.
Long synopsis
In 2009, the New York Times magazine published photographer Gillian Laub’s photos of Montgomery County, Georgia’s racially segregated proms. The article ignited a firestorm of national outrage and led the community to finally integrate its proms. Southern Rites looks at Montgomery County one year later, as old wounds are reopened following the murder of a young black man by an elderly white town patriarch. Against the backdrop of an historic campaign to elect its first African-American sheriff, the case divides locals along well-worn racial lines and threatens to drag the town back to darker days. What at first seems like an open and shut case soon turns out to be anything but, and the ensuing trial uncovers complex truths and emotionally charged revelations. Hauntingly filmed by the photographer whose photos first brought the area unwanted notoriety, Southern Rites documents one town’s painful struggle to progress while confronting longstanding issues of race, equality and justice.
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Crew
Gillian Laub
Director
Gillian Laub is a visual artist who uses photography, text, and video in her work. She spent more than a decade documenting racially segregated proms in Montgomery County, Georgia. In 2009, The New York Times Magazine published the images and interviews.
They caused national outrage which led Montgomery County to finally integrate its proms. Southern Rites, her debut film, revisits the town in the year after, as the area grapples with issues of race that go far beyond its school dances.
In 2005, Gillian received Nikon’s Storyteller Award for her work in the Middle East. With the support of the Jerome Foundation, Aperture published her first monograph, “Testimony” – a body of work comprising portraits and testimonies of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians affected by the complex geopolitical context in which they live. Gillian was recently a nominee for the Arnold Newman prize in portraiture and a recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship. Her photographs frequently appear in The New York Times Magazine, TIME and the New Yorker.
About the production company:
Get Lifted Film Co. was founded by partners John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Siklorius. The company has sold nine television projects to networks including Showtime, NBC, HBO, USA and FOX. In addition to these sales, GLFC was previously in an overall deal for Television with Comcast/Universal owned studio Universal Cable Productions(UCP) and is currently in an overdeal with Legendary Television.
Get Lifted Film Co has several feature projects in various stages of development/production some of which include: “The Black Count(2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner)”, to be written and directed by Cary Fukunaga(True Detective). “The Lazarus”, which they’ll produce with Forest Whitaker’s Significant Productions(Fruitvale Station) and “Breaking Through” which goes into production in August 2014.
Group Effort Films is a production company founded by writer and producer Josh Alexander. Their first feature film BACKSEAT premiered at the Austin Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award and subsequently played at festivals across the US and abroad. The film was released by Truly Indie (a Wagner/Cuban company) and Film Buff in 2008. Group Effort Film’s second feature, the documentary PRETTY OLD, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and played to rave reviews and sold-out screenings at across the USA and was executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and Joe Berlinger. This film was released in 2014 by GoDigital in the USA and Grindstone Media/Juice in Canada. Group Effort Films recently completed the HBO documentary SOUTHERN RITES, which is acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub’s directorial debut and is being executive produced by John Legend, Troy Carter and Mike Jackson.
