GUILFORD-The Blues Society, a new documentary by Augusta Palmer, will have its Vermont premiere on Saturday, Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m. This is the concluding presentation of the Kopkind filmmakers' workshop and retreat in collaboration with the Center for Independent Documentary (CID).
The subject of the film is the Memphis Country Blues Festival, an event described by organizers in a news release as one "blues masters and beatniks created [...] that rocked the foundations of conservative America."
The screening, followed by discussion with the filmmaker, will take place at the Organ Barn, 158 Kopkind Rd. This is a free public event.
"There is always a disconnect in the deep context of the music, which is violence and pain and hurt," one of Palmer's interviewees says in the film. "Yet," organizers say, "still there is the sound, the stories of life, the musicians and their glorious cultural legacy."
When Black and white musicians came together to launch the festival in Memphis, segregation may have been out by law but not in fact, and the violence that enforced it has never been legislateable.
Organizers say the year before, Black sanitation workers went on strike over abuse, neglect, and the death of two workers because of malfunctioning machines. Their daily pickets, with the slogan "I Am a Man," were met with police nightsticks and tear gas - "a strike that is remembered today mainly because it is what brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis in April 1968, when he was assassinated."
Shortly before the 1969 festival took place, the local KKK Imperial Wizard rallied his followers. It did not stop the struggle for recognition and dignity (the workers won their strike) or the celebration of genius and the affirmation of humanity.
The Blues Society weaves musical performances with animation, archival images, and a chorus of voices to Reaching into the present, the film ends with a concert where Rev. John Wilkins returns to the stage he shared 48 years earlier with his father, blues master Robert Wilkins. Palmer, the film's director, whose father was one of the festival organizers, workshopped The Blues Society two years ago at Kopkind/CID film camp when it was still a work in progress. She is one of close to 200 documentary filmmakers who have come to Guilford since 2006 for a weeklong retreat to share their work, explore new ideas, get fresh perspectives, and support one another, all with "a special brand of radical relaxation": films, food, and discussions on the art, politics, and experiences of filmmaking. Kopkind is a living memorial to Andrew Kopkind, who the organization remembers as "a brilliant radical journalist, a gay man, who brought literary style and intimate acquaintance with the dynamic political and cultural life of his time to the service of reportage and analysis." The project is marking its 25th year of bringing intergenerational groups of journalists, activists, and filmmakers together for a week of political and cultural exploration, intellectual stimulation, discussion, and rest amid the pastoral beauty of Southern Vermont. According to its website, the project follows in Andy Kopkind's spirit of thinking deeply, living expressively, and extending the field for freedom, pleasure and imagination. For more information, contact Kopkind Administrator John Scagliotti at [email protected] or Kopkind President JoAnn Wypijewski at [email protected]. This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.