JAM White River Indie Film Festival
MARCH 26th 2023 2:00 PM The Briggs Opera House
WRIF 2023 At JAM and the Briggs Opera House. Full line-up can be found here. Learn more about the White River Indie Film Festival here.
MORE INFORMATION HERE
Founded in 2004, White River Indie Films was created by a small group of film lovers who wanted to bring works from outside the mainstream to an appreciative, film-loving audience. The first three-day festival was held in White River Junction, Vermont in 2005. From the beginning, our focus was on screening issue-oriented films, hosting discussions, and partnering with community organizations with the goal of inspiring change. Alongside this mission was the aim of bringing filmmakers and film lovers together to enjoy groundbreaking, provocative, and entertaining movies.
Stay after the film for a panel discussion!
The post-screening live panel will unpack the film's context of government-sponsored housing and urban development practices driven by racist attitudes that have built inequality into our civic and residential spaces across the U.S. with harmful socioeconomic, psychological, and spiritual implications for all and highlight action paths to design inclusive, equitable communities. Panelists will include Laura Di Piazza (media artist, "Redlining Our Souls," MFA Goddard College), Conicia Jackson (Housing and food activist, JD VT Law School), and others to be announced. Moderated by Hartford VT Treasurer Joe Major (Executive Director, Upper Valley Aquatic Center; Howard Univ.).
Racist Trees
Racial tensions are reignited as a historically Black neighborhood in Palm Springs fights for the removal of a wall of trees that many believe were originally planted as a totem of segregation. A few years ago, debate on this issue reached as far as Fox News. The focus was a row of tamarisk trees along a huge golf course in Palm Springs that screened off the neighborhood of Crossley Tract, a historically Black neighborhood named after its founder Lawrence Crossley, who was one of the first Black residents to settle in the largely white tourist paradise, established on indigenous land over a century ago. Though racial tensions in this country are a serious matter, the filmmakers' aim was to tackle this heavy subject in a human way – with nuance, a sense of lightness, and even humor at times in hopes of disarming our viewers in order to have more honest conversations about race, even when it is difficult and uncomfortable.