Yonder and Carrboro Film Fest have teamed up again to bring #NewSouthernFilm to downtown Hillsborough! In this stimulating collection of films, we look closely at the human body and explore myriad ways the body can express the self and communicate with other selves. Our headlining film, “The Yurt,” stars Hillsborough native Zach Strum, whose character is recovering from a bad breakup when he meets a tantric guru and discovers an unexpected path to healing. Both Strum and the film’s director, Zachary Coker, will be in attendance for a Q&A after the screening. Admission is free, so join us Wednesday, August 30, 7 PM, for a rousing night of film!

Carrboro Film Fest is proud to present The Smell of Money,  a compelling documentary that brings to life a social justice issue especially poignant for North Carolinians: the true cost of the world’s cheap pork. A century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery, Elsie Herring and her rural North Carolina community fight the world's largest pork corporation for their freedom to enjoy fresh air, clean water, and a life without the stench of manure. We invite you to join us for the screening and a special Q&A with producer and North Carolina native Jamie Berger after the screening.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

Carrboro Film Fest is proud to present a fascinating block of narrative shorts along with a presentation and discussion with acclaimed photographers Alex Harris and Margaret Sartor about their new book, Our Strange New Land: Narrative Movie Sets in the American South. Blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, Harris and Sartor have created an immersive book, using still imagery to evoke their own cinematic-like narrative. Harris’s photographs, made on more than 40 film sets from across the South, reveal a new generation of Southern filmmakers coming to terms with matters of race, class, and sexuality. Together, Harris’s photographs and the accompanying films ask us to consider how much our setting shapes our behavior, and, more importantly, what power we have to resist our prescribed plotlines if they no longer serve us. We hope you leave the theater enriched by a look behind the camera and equipped with a renewed sense of agency in the story of your own life.

Included in this block:
Our Strange New Land (30:00)
Future Boys (11:43)
This Is Our Home (13:32)
Far West (9:25) 
How to Behave At a Party (1:57)
Free Noir Papillion (11:09)
Everythingeater (15:56)

"Our Strange New Land" is sponsored by the Film Studies program at UNC.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

Progress is rarely perfect or easy, which is why this collection of shorts seeks to honor the journey itself in all its complexity. In these stories you will find triumph, hardship, and doubt –  but never complacency. The individuals at the heart of these films have one thing in common: they are moving forward, and we are happy to be along for the ride. 

Films in this block:
CANS Can't Stand (18:33)
Letter From a Refugee (2:30)
The Last Last Hike (19:54)
Becoming (10:45)
Gay Haircut (7:30)
Bright Morning Stars (16:58)
More Than I Want to Remember (14:00)

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

We’re inviting you to a screening of nine short films that collectively explore the human traditions and natural forces shaping human behavior. Among the alluring characters in this collection, we meet a hunter who reflects on his place in nature, a group of hippies who set out to revive Western swing country music, and a climber who refuses to give up on a challenging boulder. We hope you leave this block with a newfound appreciation for the things that draw us together and illuminate our humanity.

Films in this block:
Birds (13:50)
To The Bone (5:36)
The Sax Man (3:00)
OTIS (10:26)
How We Found Our Sound (11:11)
Don't You Go Nowhere (8:00)
Tides (8:00) 
May We Know Our Strength (5:45)
Inner Mounting Flame (24:18)

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

In this collection of documentary shorts, we are returning to origins: an abandoned childhood home, a raging river, a farm in the mountains, and the very dust from which we came. The subjects at the heart of these films are reckoning with their place in history and nature and, along the way, developing deeper connections to others, to their communities, and to their world. Our hope is that you leave this block feeling more rooted in yourself and more ready to enrich the people, places, and things that give you life.

Films in this block:
First Final Ride (11:19)
Freedom Hill (29:43)
Wintering Grounds (20:37)
Fog Likely Farm (27:35)

"Returning to the Source" is sponsored by the elondocs program at Elon University.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

When the curtains rise for this block, we’re prescribing our audience the red pill and showing you just how deep the rabbit hole goes. In this collection of seven short films, you will see the world through new eyes. Travel the city with a homeless man seeking justice. Step into the arena with a former sniper recovering from PTSD. Encounter a mysterious backyard hole with an anxious young boy. We can’t promise you’ll be able to bend spoons after these films, but you will know the truth.

Films in this block:
Soldier (22:00)
Dead Fair (3:03)
Pulled Over / Pulled Under (17:08)
To Live and Die in the Shadows (5:29)
God Bless (8:21) 
Hell and Back Again (5:00)
The Devil Will Run (10:24)
Act of God (21:54)

"I Know the Truth" is sponsored by Shadowbox Studio in Durham.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

Did you hear the story about the Holocaust survivor who inspired clowns? What about the Vietnamese immigrant who bonds with her daughter while paying bills over the phone? Have you heard about the trailblazing civil rights leader George H. White? Neither had we, which is why this block of shorts is devoted to the stories we haven’t told enough. Sometimes painful, sometimes celebratory, these films explore universal questions of family, identity, privilege, loss, and the human search for happiness. We hope you leave this block with a new perspective on the small things in life and, of course, some new stories to tell. 

Films in this block:
Smile Little Ladybug (16:39)
Ma's Kitchen (12:19)
Craven Gap (4:10)
Ebbs and Flows (9:20)
In These Times (3:12)
I'm the Girl (16:18)
Pickup (12:34)
George H. White: Searching for Freedom (26:00)

“Stories We (Should) Tell” is sponsored by Blair, a nonprofit, independent press that publishes diverse books, including literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction about the American South and beyond.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.

Audre Lorde once said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” In this collection of six short films, we see marginalized Southern bodies transformed from objects of oppression into powerful sites of resistance and rebirth. Among the individuals featured in these films are a Black mother who must protect the genetic integrity of her unborn child, a fat woman who confronts her well-meaning bandmates during a sexy album shoot, and an Alabama activist who works tirelessly to provide accessible COVID-19 vaccination to her small town community. We hope you will leave this block invigorated and empowered to use your own body as an agent of change. 

Films in this block:
The Panola Project (16:39)
Myles Berrio (7:49)
Rebyrth (5:14)
Post-Citrus (10:53)
Suga Brown (17:49)
Dawn: A Charleston Legend (34:00)

"Southern Bodies" is sponsored by The Chelsea Theater in Chapel Hill.

Masking and either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test will be required to attend. Tickets available here.