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Vol. LXV, No. 19
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Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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Vol. LXV, No. 19
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Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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The Princeton Public Library will get a leg up on the Public Broadcast System (PBS) when it presents a sneak preview of the new documentary Welcome to Shelbyville on Thursday, May 19, at 6:30 p.m. in the Community Room. The national premiere of the film, which looks at a small Tennessee town in the heart of the Bible Belt grappling with rapidly changing demographics, won’t be until Tuesday, May 24, when it will be shown on Independent Lens, the Emmy Award-winning PBS series hosted by America Ferrera at 10 p.m. (check local listings).
An added fillip to the Thursday program will be the presence of the film’s director, Kim Snyder, who also happens to hail from the Princeton area. Ms. Snyder will participate in a post-screening discussion.
Speaking from Tucson, Arizona, Ms. Snyder described how Welcome to Shelbyville “evolved out of a series of documentaries that I took on to highlight people in communities who were tackling tough problems in innovative ways.” More specifically, she said, she wanted “to take on immigration.” When asked about available stories, policy makers in the field told her that there’s “not much out there,” since “people in small towns were navigating for themselves.” One of the towns, Shelbyville, eventually became the focus of efforts to encourage more welcoming efforts among local citizens.
“Just a stone’s throw away from Pulaski, Tennessee (the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan), Shelbyville’s longtime African American and white residents are challenged with how best to integrate with a burgeoning Latino population and the more recent arrival of hundreds of Somali refugees of Muslim faith,” notes a description of the documentary. “Set on the eve of the 2008 Presidential election, the film captures the interaction between Shelbyville’s old and new residents as they search for a way to live together during that tumultuous, history-changing year.”
“I want the film to be a conversation-starter,” observed Ms. Snyder, describing it as providing “a microcosm for people in many different parts of the country.” She hopes the film will promote “more open dialogue about the issue in a way that isn’t polarizing or framed in ‘pro’ and ‘anti’” perspectives, but in an environment where people can “safely air their feelings.”
A pre-screening pot luck dinner at 6 p.m. will set the tone for the evening; people are encouraged to bring a dessert or appetizer that “represents their culture or a family tradition,” according to Anastasia R. Mann, who directs the Program on Immigration and Democracy at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, a cosponsor of the Thursday event along with the Princeton Borough Department of Human Services, Not In Our Town, and the YWCA of Princeton. The library will supply lemonade and iced tea.
“I really do believe in the power of documentary to create dialogue and effect social change,” noted Ms. Snyder, who is a cofounder of the BeCause Foundation, an organization that seeks to promote social change by combining new documentary films with “creative outreach and engagement projects.”
Ms. Snyder is appearing in only four of the 80 cities in which Welcome to Shelbyville is being previewed. Her parents were the founders of the Princeton Gallery of Fine Arts and as a result, she says, she spent many hours “holed up” in the Princeton Public Library. She has not yet seen the library’s new building, and is very much looking forward to her return visit. Noting that her father, who was himself an artist, died just a few years ago in Lambertville, she reported having “very sentimental and nostalgic ties to Princeton.”
Welcome to Shelbyville received a 2010 Gucci-Tribeca Documentary Fund grant and was an official selection of the U.S. State Department’s 2010 American Documentary Showcase.