Film camp, a seminar/retreat collaboration between Kopkind and the Center for Independent Documentary (CID), begins on August 4, gathering documentary filmmakers from around the country to workshop their films-in-progress and refresh themselves for the work ahead.
Capping this year’s session, we are proud to present a wonderful new documentary, “The Blues Society”, by Augusta Palmer, on Saturday, August 10, at 7:30 pm, at Tree Frog Farm, 158 Kopkind Road in Guilford. This is a free public event.
Augusta, who will be on hand for the screening and discussion after, was at film camp a couple of years ago, workshopping this film, which tells the origin story of the first Memphis Country Blues Festival. It was 1969. In Memphis, a city with one of the richest musical histories of anyplace in the world, blues masters and beatniks created a festival that rocked the foundations of conservative America. Segregation may have been out by law but not in fact, and the violence that enforced it has never been legislateable. “The Blues Society” weaves hypnotic musical performances with animation, archival images and a chorus of voices to create a moving image mixtape that both celebrates the music and its makers and documents an era.
“There is always a disconnect in the deep context of the music, which is violence and pain and hurt”, one of Augusta’s interviewees says in the film. And still there is the sound, the musicians, the genius and their glorious legacy.
Please join us on August 10 for what promises to be a terrific evening.
Kopkind Colony 