Details
Directed by: Chantal Akerman
Runtime: 1h 10min
Certificate: 12
Year: 1999
Topics:
History & Archive
Last Screened:
Sun 2nd Mar 2025
Inspired by her love of William Faulkner and James Baldwin, Chantal Akerman had planned to produce a meditation on the American South.
However, before she began filming, she learnt of the racially-motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, lynched by three white supremacists.
Eschewing the tropes of ‘true crime’, Akerman takes a slower, more considered approach, allowing the story to unfold through patient interviews and long shots of the lush landscape of the Texas hinterland. As local people reflect on the attack, Akerman paints a picture of racism in the South and the legacy of slavery – as searingly relevant today as it was on release in 1999.