FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, 3/26/2024 — The award-winning PBS series Reel South has announced a new season of exemplary films documenting the cultures and histories that are redefining the American South. Films will be released weekly beginning April 8, 2024, on the free PBS App and broadcast beginning April 11, 2024, on PBS NC.
Presented as six episodes, these films bring forward a cache of archival footage, photographs, mixed media and headlines past and present to extoll missing stories from our shared military, health and spiritual histories.
“This season adds new depth to the historical records the U.S. and the American South have preserved, and it challenges Americans to ask what defines and who establishes our collective posterity,” said Reel South series producer Nick Price. “Above all, each film showcases the power of human connection and the communities created in any aftermath.”
Season 9 of Reel South opens with two shorts that feature overlooked perspectives from the Vietnam War and the impacts of racism from the era: David Brodie’s The Volunteer and Patrick Longstreth’s The Day That Shook Georgia. The Volunteer reunites a Vietnam veteran with the soldier who saved his life during an anti-Asian act of racism. The Day That Shook Georgia helps re-center one of the worst industrial accidents in American history and the predominantly Black women who fell victim to the negligence.
“Reel South’s unique vantage and PBS’ trusted platform is the perfect partnership to highlight the underrepresented histories buried in America’s compelling past and present. These films speak to the importance of regional perspectives to help inform our national story,” said PBS Plus Director of Programming Michael E. Tang.
Two feature films are presented this season: Matthew Hashiguchi’s The Only Doctor, a story of a rural medical clinic in southern Georgia; and Eliecer Jimenez Almeida’s Veritas, which retells the calamitous history of the 1962 Bay of Pigs invasion through the personal interviews of the Cuban exiles who felt abandoned by the U.S. government.
On April 25, four shorts will air together in a detailed curation of stories set at home and abroad. This program explores the collective action to archive and preserve our physical and spiritual selves.
On May 9, Heather Courtney’s film For the Record, whose central protagonist narrates the season trailer, premieres alongside Thom Southerland’s I’m the Girl. Unearthed in these two films are the important stories of any town’s record and the people who keep it.
“For the past decade, Reel South has provided filmmakers working in our region the opportunity to get their powerful films seen across the country. As the American South continues to drive the national conversation, these stories provide a well-needed, authentic lens into our communities and cultures,” said Rachel Raney, PBS North Carolina’s Director of National Productions and co-creator/co-executive producer of the series.
Finally, Reel South concludes its ninth season with “Land-scraped Landscapes,” an hour-long program of original shorts that were commissioned and produced last year. Five films, directed by filmmakers representing diverse backgrounds and perspectives, engage the spiritual and existential challenges of the South’s diverse landscapes.
Reel South airs Thursdays at 10:00 PM on PBS NC. Visit pbsnc.org/schedule for the latest scheduling information. Info and graphics for each film can be found in the Season 9 Press Kit.
Directed by David Brodie
Thursday, April 11, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 8)
Vietnam veteran Bruce Nakashima reunites with a soldier who saved his life during an anti-Asian act of racism within his own company. After a decades-long search for each other, Nakashima and Alabama-native L.V. Hendking relate their lived experiences as Vietnam War veterans of color.
Directed by Patrick Longstreth
Thursday, April 11, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 8)
This film revisits an explosion at an armament factory in southeast Georgia and current efforts to honor the victims. Local news and personal archives help re-center one of the worst industrial accidents in American history and the predominantly Black women who fell victim to the negligence.
Directed by Eliecer Jimenez Almeida
Thursday, April 18, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 15)
This film retells the calamitous history of the 1962 Bay of Pigs invasion through the personal interviews of the Cuban exiles who felt abandoned by the U.S. government.
Directed by Madison Hill
Thursday, April 25, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 22)
Three community members in a rural Appalachian town experience illnesses after exposure to contamination from a nearby US Army Ammunition Plant. Due to the open burning of waste, the facility is considered the largest polluter in Virginia, releasing millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air, soil, and water each year. The film incorporates contaminants from the facility into 1200 feet of 16mm film.
Directed by Kathryn Carlson
Thursday, April 25, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 22)
Georgetown University sold hundreds of enslaved people to stave off bankruptcy, scattering families across the South, never to see each other again. With the help of DNA databases, their descendants are reconnecting six generations later. Finding Us is a portrait of four descendants who are using their unique talents to regrow the family trees felled nearly two centuries ago.
Directed by Nathan Fitch
Thursday, April 25, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 22)
This film explores the nuclear legacy of the U.S. in the Pacific and the lingering catastrophe in its wake. In Springdale, Arkansas, migrants from the Marshall Islands gather to commemorate the 1946 bombing of Bikini Atoll and ask the questions: Why did the United States choose their islands, and what are the ongoing impacts on their indigenous Pacific Island community?
Directed by Field Humphrey
Thursday, April 25, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 22)
A historian revisits the oral history of a 1920s schoolteacher in the Mississippi Delta. Clinton Bagley revisits his first interview from Mississippi’s Washington County Oral History Program. Among the files and folders, one piece of material sticks out: the catalyst for the whole program. In a conversation he recorded in 1975 with Daisy Greene, a retired schoolteacher from his hometown of Greenville, Mississippi, we learn about a devastating flood in 1927, often cruel systems of oppression and the disparate voices that define the Delta.
Directed by Matthew Hashiguchi
Thursday, May 2, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, April 29)
A longitudinal story of a rural medical clinic in southern Georgia and the only doctor running the facility from 2018 through the first years of the pandemic.
Directed by Heather Courtney
Thursday, May 9, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, May 6)
A newspaper publisher in Texas strives to keep the town’s paper of record alive.
Directed by Thom Southerland
Thursday, May 9, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, May 6)
An iconic photo of an unknown girl is inspected by the women who claim to know the truth.
Thursday, May 16, at 10 PM (stream beginning Monday, May 13)
Five films, directed by filmmakers representing diverse backgrounds and perspectives, engage the spiritual and existential challenges of the South’s diverse landscapes.
Reel South is a PBS documentary series coproduced byPBS North Carolina, South Carolina ETV and Louisiana Public Broadcasting, and produced in association with Alabama Public Television, Arkansas PBS, South Florida PBS, the Tennessee Public Television Council, Atlanta’s WABE and Richmond’s VPM. Reel South is a platform for and a service to nonfiction filmmakers in the American South. Reel South’s season nine is produced with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
As North Carolina’s statewide PBS network serving the country’s third largest public media market, PBS North Carolina educates, informs, entertains and inspires its audience on air, online and in person. Through its unique partnership of public investment and private support, the network includes in-person engagement, digital-first social and online content delivery and four over-the-air channels: PBS NC, the North Carolina Channel, Rootle 24/7 PBS KIDS channel and the Explorer Channel. Its transformational events and content spark curiosity and wonder for all North Carolinians. Additionally, PBS North Carolina serves as the backbone for North Carolina’s state emergency services. To learn more about PBS North Carolina, visit pbsnc.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
-PBS NC-
Media Contact
Nick Price
Series Producer
nick@reelsouth.org
Allyson Meade, Marketing & Communications
PBS North Carolina
press@pbsnc.org
Relevant Links
Press Kit
Season 9 Trailer