Documentaries in Southern festival look at legacies of past

DURHAM, N.C. -- When Marco Williams traveled to a small Arkansas town that banished black residents a century ago, the documentary filmmaker discovered that for some, history was still a selling point.

In making his movie "Banished," Williams discovered that Harrison, Ark., remains a town that's almost exclusively white -- a place where the Confederate flag still flies outside the city's Chamber of Commerce. One resident Williams interviews says without hesitation that he moved to the town of about 12,000 because it was a place that only about a dozen blacks call home.

"There were much more virulent, racist things that he said that didn't have any necessity for the film," Williams said.

Redress of past wrongs is also the theme of the films that make up the "Southern Sidebar" at this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, which in its 10th year continues to be one of the nation's leading events for documentary films. The festival began Thursday and continues through Sunday.

Along with Williams' film, the Southern Sidebar includes the world premiere of "Moving Midway," the story of man's investigation into the history of his family and their slaves. Both films will be shown Saturday.

Also playing: "Greensboro: Closer to the Truth," a movie that examines the work of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The panel, modeled on historic reconciliation efforts in South Africa and Peru, investigated the deaths of five Communist Workers Party organizers who were killed in a 1979 shootout with Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen during a "Death to the Klan" rally.