THE RIVER: A SONGWRITER’S STORIES OF THE SOUTH

NOW AVAILABLE FOR WORLDWIDE ALL MEDIA LICENSING.

The visionary new film The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South is unlike anything you’ve seen.

Starring Nashville-based cosmic roots band Coyote Motel, it’s a music and performance movie, but i t’s also a cultural history, a memoir, and a psychedelic experience. In 10 songs and stories, The River explores the lives, lore, and locales along three great rivers of the American South—the Mississippi, the Cumberland, and the Tallahatchie.

The film has already been selected for multiple festivals, and has won awards for Best Experimental Film and Best Original Soundtrack. The soundtrack recording was released on March 19, 2024 when the movie has its hometown premiere at Nashville, Tennessee’s historic Belcourt Theatre.

The crowdfunded, 68-minute feature was conceived and written by Coyote Motel bandleader Ted Drozdowski and directed by Richie Owens of Parlor Films, and is also a collaboration of more than 15 Nashville independent artists, including light art creators Darling Lucifer Productions and the aerialists of Suspended Gravity Circus.

Starting at Nashville’s Cumberland and weaving south along the Mississippi and Tallahatchie, The River introduces viewers and listeners to muleskinners, coal miners, riverboat gamblers, freedom fighters, and the late musical giants of North Mississippi blues. It also essays the omnipotent, timeless magic of the rivers themselves, and the cities and rural outposts along their endlessly flowing waters, with grace, beauty, and surprise.

THE SONGS INCLUDED IN THE PERFORMANCE ARE:

  • Tupelo – 6:01
  • Black Lung Fever – 4:46
  • Keep Me In Your Mind – 3:17
  • The River Runs Forever – 3:27
  • Long Distance Runner – 7:11
  • Trouble – 3:02
  • Homegoing – 4:09
  • Still Among the Living – 4:30
  • Down in Chulahoma – 3:55
  • The River – 6:16

THE FRAGILE KING

Bell Affair, The

Kindred

Making Sweet Tea

A southern-born, black gay man goes back home to reconnect with black gay men he has performed on stage for a decade.

Making Sweet Tea” chronicles the journey of southern-born, black gay researcher and performer E. Patrick Johnson as he travels home to North Carolina to come to terms with his past, and to Georgia, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. to reconnect with several black gay men he interviewed for his book, Sweet Tea. Johnson transformed that book into several staged plays over the course of a decade, and the film combines footage from his past performances of the men with documentary moments from their lives a decade after the book’s publication.

The film also focuses on Johnson’s life in the south while showing how the men have changed since – and been changed by – their depictions in his book and plays.

The film covers the subtle complexities of Johnson’s relationships with these men, with his family, and with his hometown in North Carolina. The film also restages Johnson’s performances of the men’s narrative in their homes, in their churches, and on their jobs, sometimes with them directing him or even participating in the scene.

Blurring the line between art and life, the film offers a rare glimpse into the lives of people rarely given a platform to speak and demonstrates how research, artistry, and life converge.

A festival favotite with numerous wins including:

  • Winner: Best Documentary, Out On Film Atlanta LGBTQ Film Festival
  • Winner: AARP Silver Image Award, Chicago LGBTQ International Film Festival
  • Winner: Best LGBTQ Film, San Diego Black Film Festival
  • Winner: Audience Choice Award, Kansas City FilmFest International
  • Winner: Judges’ Choice Documentary Film, Longleaf North Carolina Museum of History

Documentary / 2020 / 89 Minutes / Color / English / A film by John L. Jackson Jr.

HOW TO ORDER:

Public Performance and Digital Site Licenses are available through Soundview Media Partners. To inquire or to place an order, write to info@soundviewmediapartners.com or simply choose from the options below:

License Options

WATCH THE TRAILER

The Etruscan Smile

TANNA

Elis & Tom: só tinha de ser com você

Final Fight

DON’T WE NEED TO HEAL OUR WARRIORS?

PTSD and Suicide in the military have reached crisis levels. 11 out of 20 veterans of the global war on terrorism have PTSD.

WINNER: Best in Show at the 2024 Impact Doc Awards

WINNER: Best Documentary Feature, GI Film Festival 2024

Winner of the New York Women in Film and Television Award for Excellence in Documentary Directing.

Nominated for Best Documentary Showcase at the Soho International Film Festival 2023.

Final Fight goes deeper than any documentary to date in revealing the root causes of this tragic epidemic by profiling a diverse group of veterans struggling with either combat or sexual assault-related Post Traumatic Stress, a major cause of suicide.

As the devastating war in Afghanistan and Iraq continued on, U.S. military brass who struggled to fight the longest-running war in United States history, largely ignored not only the connection between traumatic brain injuries and suicide but also uncontrolled sexual assault among the rank and file. Leading experts in the field of PTS therapy and brain science offer hope and answers to the struggling veterans profiled in the series but also to the family and friends who love them.

Produced in 2023, director Frances Causey wrote “While I was researching Final Fight, it became painstakingly clear that the US Military had few – if any – answers to the ongoing, historic epidemic of PTSD-related suicide among its veterans. THIS FILM IS THAT ANSWER.”

Largely unknown to most Americans, over the last 20 years, the United States has lost almost five times as many active service members and veterans to suicide than were lost in theentirety of the Global War on Terrorism combat operations.

A perfectly balanced expose that combines compassion, understanding, and a compelling call to action while celebrating the resilience and humanity of its subjects. Tightly crafted, emotionally moving and exceptional in every way.” – Impact Docs

“An incredibly powerful documentary, and an extremely necessary one. Recommended.” – S. Lyons, The Sound View.

Final Fight offers insight into the issue, but more importantly points to a path of forward hope.

2023 / Documentary / 90 minutes / English / A film by Frances Causey

HOW TO ORDER:

Public Performance and Digital Site Licenses are available through Soundview Media Partners. To inquire or to place an order, write to info@soundviewmediapartners.com or simply choose from the options below:

License Options

In Home / Personal Use Copies of the DVD are available at

FINAL FIGHT DVD

Watch the Trailer

GHOSTS OF THE WEST: THE END OF THE BONANZA TRAIL