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The first documentary to explore the storied and complex legacy of Nobel Prize-winner WILLIAM FAULKNER - his life, literary masterpieces, and his role in today's conversation on race, civil rights and community.
As former President Barack Obama said: "Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried -- it is not even past." In our current time of reckoning on diversity and inclusion, FAULKNER: THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD offers an understanding of our present through Faulkner's personal struggles and literary masterpieces.
An Opening into FAULKNER: THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD
Written and directed by Michael Modak-Truran
Produced by Anastasia Lampton Triplett and Jeremy Culver
Executive Producer Peter Broderick
Executive Producer Anita Modak-Truran
Narrated by and starring Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts as Faulkner, THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD immerses the viewer into Faulkner's world, by using contemporary cinematography, archival photographs, newspaper images, Faulkner's writings, animations, interviews with the world's leading Faulkner scholars, re-enactments filmed in Faulkner's Rowan Oak and an original score.
The film highlights the evolution of Faulkner's writing and his changing view of race through the stories he wrote and the turbulent times he lived through. He condemned the murder of Emmett Till. He received death threats from people he knew. But he endured and never stopped writing about the human heart in conflict with itself. Faulkner has forever changed the literary landscape.
"A TRIUMPHANT FILM"
Jesse Yancy, Mississippi Sideboard
"Like a drumbeat, the film summons the power of Faulkner's prose and its ability to romantics, to probe, to make felt the enduring struggle of race in our nation and in every human heart."
William Ferris
Former Chair NEH
"Very strong directorial debut for Michael Modak-Truran "
Maeve McGrath
Director of Programming Galway Film Fleadh
"This film is not afraid to confront important questions on Faulkner."
W. Ralph Eubanks
Writer
"Bloody Feckin' Brilliant"
Galway Film Festival Patron
"Rich and nuanced" film on "the complicated life of the great American novelist William Faulkner"
Loyd Komesar,
Festival Producer
Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
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