'Hale County This Morning, This Evening' is shown at ETSU
September 14, 2022 | 7 pm @ East Tennessee State University
East Tennessee State University Art & Design and Tipton & Slocumb Galleries’ Student Activities Allocation Committee Collaborative Project present “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” a film by RaMell Ross,Sept. 14 at 7 p.m., Ball Hall Auditorium after the “Y’all Don’t Hear Me: The Black Appalachia” reception at 6 p.m. at the Slocumb Galleries.Funded by the Arts Project Support from the Tennessee Arts Commission, Bravissima: Women Sponsoring the Arts and East Tennessee Foundation’s Arts Fund, in partnership with ETSU Film & Media Studies and Radio, TV and Film programs.
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening” is a directorial debut in nonfiction genre for Black artist and photographer RaMell Ross, an avant garde documentary film about the lives of Black people in Hale County, Alabama, where Ross lived in 2018. The documentary is recipient of several awards including the 2020 Peabody Award,2018 Sundance Film Festivalaward for U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision,2018Gotham Independent Film Awardfor Best Documentary Feature and the Cinema Eye Honors Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, andwas nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Documentary Featureand was aired on thePBSseriesIndependent Lens.
ETSU Film & Media Studies program co-director Dr. Matthew Holtmeier described Ross filmmaking strategy as “seemingly verité in style, Hale County's cinematography and composition belong more to the realm of poetry.” He added, “Ross's film does not document a community in Hale County as much as it dwells within it.” In addition,Radio, Television and Film program director Dr. Shara Lange quotes that Ross’challenge to “disautomate the consumption of blackness," is taken up in this complex, beautiful film. She suggests that “viewers might be interested in reading his manifesto, ‘Renew the Encounter,’ before they watch the film.
Ross is an artist, filmmaker, writer and liberated documentarian. His work has appeared in places like Aperture; Hammer Museum; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Museum of Modern Art; Georgia Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art; and Walker Art Center. He has been awarded an Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, was a 2020 USA Artist Fellow and a 2022 Solomon Fellow at Harvard University. His feature experimental documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” won a Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and 2020 Peabody Award. It was nominated for an Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards and an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Film. Ross holds degrees in sociology and English from Georgetown University and is an associate professor in Brown University’s Visual Art Department. His work is in various public and private collections.
“Y’all Don’t Hear Me: The Black Appalachia” is curated by independent curator and ETSU alumna Kreneshia Whiteside-McGee aka Kren The Curator. It is on display through Sept. 26 at Slocumb Galleries and through Oct. 7 at Tipton Gallery. The public engagement events include prominent Black Poet Nikki Giovanni’s poetry reading followed by Q&A and book signing Sept. 20, at Brown Hall Auditorium, ETSU campus from 6 to 8 p.m.; and the closing reception at Tipton Gallery Oct. 7, from 6 to 8 p.m..
The “Hale County This Morning, This Evening”film showing as part of the“Y’all Don’t Hear Me: The Black Appalachia”areinterdisciplinary collaborations with the ETSU Black American Studies, the Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative, College of Arts & Sciences’ Office of the Dean, the Mary V. Jordan Multicultural Center, Department of Appalachian Studies, Language Culture Resource Center, Film & Media Studies, Radio, TV & Film, Equity & Inclusion, UMOJA, The Bottom Knox, Sankofa Fund, Black Faculty & Staff Association and the Langston Centre.
For additional information about the exhibitions, contact ETSU Tipton & Slocumb Galleries Director Karlota Contreras-Koterbay via emailcontrera@etsu.edu. The Slocumb Galleries are located at 232 Sherrod Drive, ETSU campus, open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tipton Gallery is located at 126 Spring Street, Downtown Johnson City, open Thursdays and Fridays 5 to 7 p.m., and by appointment. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at (423) 439-8346.
Category: Film