The refurbished, 10th anniversary edition of Craig Brewer’s career-launching The Poor and Hungry was a sellout last night at Playhouse on the Square, with Brewer and most of the film’s original cast on hand to treat the audience to lots of his own stories about the making of that movie. Brewer also let his hometown audience be the first anywhere — outside the film’s own production — to see clips from his forthcoming studio feature Footloose, playing a five-minute “sizzle reel” of clips from the work-in-progress remake, which he had left the Atlanta set of only hours earlier.
If you tried to get into last night’s Poor & Hungry screening and weren’t able to — a condition that afflicted many — then you’ll get another chance today. Indie Memphis director Erik Jambor decided last night to schedule an encore screening of The Poor & Hungry for 2:30 p.m. today, at Playhouse on the Square.
Two other encore screenings for tonight are the documentary Thunder Soul at 8:15 and a repeat of last night’s Shorts Program #3 at 8:30. Both of these are at Studio on the Square. For a full schedule of today’s events, see IndieMemphis.com.
And, now, our guide to the rest of the Sunday film schedule:
Pick of the Day: Freedom Riders (5:30 p.m., Playhouse on the Square)
A feature-length documentary about one of the most daring passages of the civil rights movement, acclaimed non-fiction filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s Freedom Riders might serve as an essential companion piece to the classic civil rights doc series Eyes on the Prize. Via interviews with the riders, then Alabama governor John Patterson, Kennedy administration representative John Siegenthaler, and ordinary citizens who bore witness, as well as through archival footage and photography, Nelson tells the story of the first wave of Freedom Riders, black and white Americans who endured harassment, beatings, and imprisonment for simply traveling on buses together in the South in defiance of Jim Crow laws. There are few examples of heroism as humbling as those of Diana Nash, Jim Zwerg, and others like them — young students who boarded the buses in full knowledge that they were risking their lives. This festival screening is in advance of a scheduled May 2011 television debut as part of PBS’ American Experience series. — Chris Herrington
Trailer:
