Reel South Documentary Series

Season 5 coming to PBS Spring 2020. Preview Season 5 and ask the question: What Defines You?

April 6, 2020 - F11 and Be There is a commentary on American civil rights, race, social justice, and art, told through the many lenses of legendary photographer Burk Uzzle...

April 13, 2020 - Much of America’s rich history is being lost to time. In the South, vast amounts of African-American gravesites and burial grounds for enslaved persons have been...

April 13, 2020 - After a contentious race, the 2017 runoff for mayor of New Orleans came down to two candidates: Desirée Charbonnet and LaToya Cantrell, two very different black women...

April 20, 2020 - The story of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, a family-owned, Pulitzer Prize-winning local newspaper in West Virginia fighting for survival.

April 20, 2020 - LGBTQ West Virginians fight to live free from discrimination, calling us to reimagine the power and longevity of a small town queer community.

April 27, 2020 - Henrietta Boggs, a reluctant Southern belle, finds her way to Central America in the 1940s, in search of freedom and adventure. Instead, she is swept up...

May 4, 2020 - In 1979, a fatal shooting ignites a maelstrom of hostilities against Vietnamese refugee fishermen along the Gulf Coast. Set during the early days of Vietnamese refugee...

May 11, 2020 - At 84, folk music pioneer Alice Gerrard performs, teaches, and inspires the next generation while safeguarding groundbreaking moments of her past.

May 18, 2020 - The Clinton, Mississippi High School Attaché Show Choir is considered to be among the most successful in history. In a region where arts and music funding...

May 25, 2020 - As a centuries-old black community in Louisiana, contaminated and uprooted by petrochemical plants, comes to terms with the loss of its ancestral home, one man standing in...

Nearly 30,000 quilters descend upon Paducah, Kentucky, every year for its huge quilt competition, doubling the town’s population. “The Academy Awards of quilting” is a week-long spectacle in which quilters...

Tre Singleton spends an average of thirty hours a week mentoring a group of young Black men in Savannah, Georgia where he exposes them to other mentors and new skill...

This is the story of a superstar athlete and why the sports industry hasn't put her on your radar. AJ Andrews is the first woman to win a Rawlings Gold...

Set atop Sand Mountain, Alabama, SOME MILLION MILES presents a meditation on loss and the search for redemption amid a rural landscape of abundant beauty and deep poverty. Through a...

In the wake of a community tragedy, Sidney Brodie begins the Durham Homicide and Memorial Quilt. Every time someone is killed in Durham, he adds their name. But as Sidney...

Uniontown weaves together the unheard individual narratives of grassroots organizers in Uniontown, Alabama, as they fight to take back the town from the hands of industrial polluters and complacent politicians...

Following the haves and the have-nots during Kentucky Derby weekend, The Derby explores unseen sides of Kentucky’s biggest sporting event. From an anonymous reveler on Millionaires Row, to Guatemalan equine...

Cotton Plant, Arkansas grapples with steep and steady decline. Drowning in debt and immense population loss, the town faces a harsh reality: grow, or die. Mayor Willard C. Ryland, a...

A short documentary about the continued vandalism of the signs commemorating Emmett Till’s death after they were put up in 2007. These signs, erected by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission...

Decades of oil and gas infrastructure projects in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin have recklessly altered the flow of water across the wetland, forcing crawfishermen working in the Basin to ask hard...

Father Roy Snipes has lived in Texas his whole life and seen it all, especially along the Mexico border. He has dedicated his life to the oblates and keeping religion...

Illustrated scenes and archival footage of 1970's pop-culture animate Arthur Bremer’s diary entry planning the assassination of former Alabama governor George Wallace during his 1972 presidential campaign.

On seven Saturdays each fall, a tranquil South Carolina town, becomes a college football metropolis. Its heart is Howard’s Rock. Players rub it for luck before entering Clemson Memorial Stadium...

High school student and poet, Chasity Hunter, experienced intense flooding in her New Orleans neighborhood during both Hurricane Katrina and recent summer rainstorms. Inspired to find out how safe her...

In the uphill battle against fishing regulations, a changing climate, and their own geographical isolation, multiple generations of the residents of Atlantic, NC tell stories about their home and its...

The first time LaBrelah was on a horse she was eight months old. Today, she is an accomplished barrel racer in Southern rodeo circuits. With her family’s unending support, this...

Emboldened by a giant block party on the evening of their high school prom, a group of students enter the night with the hope of transcending their rural town and...

When most people are asked to name a life changing event in their adolescence, few people would claim the Titanic, a 100+ year old ship, had a profound impact on...

Richard McMahan is on a quest to painstakingly re-create thousands of famous and not-so-famous paintings and artifacts-- in miniature. From well-loved Picasso and Frida Kahlo paintings to more obscure intricate...

Organic farmer Kelley Penn wanted to learn how to keep honeybees and Bobby Jack Smith had been capturing wild swarms since he was a kid; despite their differences, bees brought...

15-year-old Courvosier “Vosiey” Cox is a triple threat: an actor, singer and comedian. He is planning the talent show he is sure will launch his career in front of hordes...

America is a patchwork quilt, and stories are its stitching. In a divided age, we need unifying stories more than ever. In order to find them, I practice the lost...

Before leaving Mexico for North Carolina, Oscar didn’t know how to flip a tortilla on the grill. Now, under the direction of a James Beard award-winning chef, he and fellow...

This experimental documentary chronicles the contemporary manifestation of the economic and social histories of Black Americans who came to the North during the Great Migration in search of economic opportunities...

This short documentary follows the stories of three unique competitors at the National Hollerin' Contest, an annual competition that’s been held in Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina since 1969. Hollerin’ itself...

Liz, a millennial first time voter from the South struggles to find herself, and a candidate that represents her, during the 2016 presidential primary. Liz feels torn between her family...

Set during the height of the civil rights movement, a band of blues hounds traveled to the Deep South to find two forgotten blues singers. Finding them would not be...

The Glover family invites an indigenous activist group to start a protest camp on their land in West Texas. Roughly 20 miles north of the US-Mexico Border, the Two Rivers...

Life for a Latinx immigrant family in the New South can be challenging and sometimes terrifying, but thankfully, there’s always a fiesta to take you through the night. Three Latina girls...

Thousands of Chinese students arrive in the United States each year, often confronting loneliness and culture-clash upon arrival. Arriving in North Carolina to study filmmaking, Hao Zhang is surprised to...

After 25 years of living in the United States, Guatemalan grandmother Juana Ortega is threatened with deportation and soon takes sanctuary in a small North Carolina church. As time passes...

In a fading Georgia town, a community recalls its dark past and faces a grim present. An undocumented immigrant, caught in legal limbo and facing deportation, contemplates his future. In...

Growing up in rural South Carolina, celebrated American garden designer Ryan Gainey developed a love of plants at an early age. After moving to Atlanta in the 1970s, Ryan began...

A successful fashion designer who gave up her big-city career, Ingrid Gipson discovered a reclusive life of solitude and unhindered creativity in Arkansas’ rural Ouachita Mountains. As if through poetry...

Captain Chris Scott rallies a colony of tent residents to defend their provisional homes against the forces of gentrification. As development encroaches on the community, the tragedies and personal experiences...

In 1952, gravedigger by day and bluesman by night Henry ‘Gip’ Gipson opened a ramshackle backyard juke joint in Alabama. Once scattered across the rural South, juke joints have become...

In the months leading up to the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, gay families in Alabama were busy fighting discriminatory state laws. Alabama Bound chronicles the roller-coaster ride for...

Monuments to the Confederacy permeate the American South. Emotions run high and tensions mount when, in 2015, the New Orleans city council convenes a public debate over the fate of...

Jonah Bascle was an unconventional mayoral candidate, even by New Orleans standards: artist, comedian, disability-rights activist. Born with muscular dystrophy, Jonah raced against mortality throughout his twenties. Combining humor, political...

(Encore Presentation) After an unexpected traffic stop, family man Miguel Cortes faces an agonizing decision. Due to his immigration status, a North Carolina judge has offered Miguel 120 Days to...

Marlise Muñoz was 33 years old and 14 weeks pregnant when she suffered a pulmonary embolism and was pronounced brain-dead. Due to a little-known Texas law, the Muñoz family was...

Dan Parker, a world champion drag racer, struggles to adjust to his new reality after he is blinded in a fiery racing accident. Though visually impaired, Dan has not given...

With unprecedented behind-the-scenes access at the Memphis Zoo, See the Keepers gets up close and personal with big cats, penguins, snakes, Komodo dragons, and their human caretakers. When Kofi the...

Brimming with cowboy boots, country music, and longneck beers, Honky Tonk Heaven is a toe-tapping tour of this legendary Texas dancehall. With fifty years under its belt, the Broken Spoke...

Learn the story of a group of civil rights activists who attempted to build a multiracial utopia—Soul City—in the heart of North Carolina’s Klan country during the 1970s. Rich archival...

Discover the oddly spellbinding personal, cultural and scientific history of the deeply transgressive and often misunderstood practice of consuming earth, a phenomenon known as geophagy. The film collects and combines...

Exiled by family and rejected by an ex, 17-year-old Jasmine finds new love and the courage to become Cole, a strong-willed transgender man, in this powerful verité portrait of trans...

Meet two unforgettable women—a fiery, pro-coal right-winger and a tenacious, environmentalist grandmother—whose lives collide when a mine disaster shatters their community. Filmed over seven years, the pair’s courageous story underscores...

Between 1933 and 1974, the state of North Carolina ran one of the most aggressive eugenics programs, sterilizing more than 7,600 men, women and children. This film follows the journey...

Come along with colorful characters carrying on a cherished Mardi Gras tradition as they gather at the epicenter of all things costuming—the family-owned Jefferson Variety fabric and craft store. The...

 (Encore Presentation) The Last Barn Dance is a short film that follows a dairy farmer's plight to save his farm and a barn-dance tradition his family started nearly 50 years...

After an unexpected traffic stop, family man Miguel Cortes faces an agonizing decision. Due to his immigration status, a North Carolina judge has offered Miguel 120 Days to get his...

Private Violence is a feature-length documentary film that explores a simple, but deeply disturbing fact of American life: the most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own...

Three decades ago, the nearly extinct red wolf was reintroduced in North Carolina. While this flagship conservation effort paved the way for reintroducing several other species across the country, today...

Little known even in their home state, the Croatians of Lower Plaquemines Parish have used grit and determination to build an oystering industry that has made Louisiana famous. Follow the...

Through interviews and never-before-seen footage, delight in the story of Mississippi sharecropper Fred McDowell, the godfather of the North Mississippi style of blues, who was first recorded by Alan Lomax...

The Last Barn Dance is a short film that follows a dairy farmer's plight to save his farm and a barn-dance tradition his family started nearly 50 years ago.  ...

TOMMY! The Dreams I Keep Inside Me is a touching film about Tommy Onorato, a 60 year-old man with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the life-long dream of singing...

The film Cotton Road follows cotton from South Carolina farms to Chinese factories to illuminate the work and industrial processes in a global supply chain.  

Americans consume nearly 20 billion...

Behind Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, there is a much larger, more devastating problem: the loss of thousands of miles of marshlands protecting the Gulf Coast. Southeast Louisiana...

Counter Histories: Rock Hill brings 1961 to life through the lives and words of the Friendship 9 whose actions ignited a passion that rose into the famed Freedom Rides, bringing...

The film Bending Sticks celebrates the twenty-five year career of internationally renowned environmental artist Patrick Dougherty, who has created hundreds of monumental, site-specific sculptures out of nothing more than saplings...