BRIGHT LEAVES Special Screenings

One of the true pioneers of the American personal documentary, Ross McElwee (SHERMAN’S MARCH, TIME INDEFINITE, SIX O’CLOCK NEWS) returns again to muse, reflect and delight in BRIGHT LEAVES.

This time, McElwee takes us on a journey back to his native North Carolina, which produces more tobacco than any other state in America. There he visits his movie-collecting cousin John, who shows him the 1950 Michael Curtiz movie BRIGHT LEAF, a melodramatic tale of warring southern tobacco barons, in which Gary Cooper’s character just might be based on one of McElwee’s ancestors.

What follows is an inspired, comical and thought-provoking essay on the allures and dangers of cigarettes, and their troubling and contradictory legacy to his home state. BRIGHT LEAVES is about loss, preservation, addiction and denial spanning generations. McElwee’s friends and family play a pivotal role in the storytelling, peppering the ride with wry, idiosyncratic observations that, as is always the case in McElwee’s fascinating social essays, make fact far more insightful and illuminating than any fiction.