My Father's Name
Sunday, August 18, 2024 at 07:30pm
Martha's Vineyard Film Society
Martha's Vineyard Film Center
79 Beach Road
Short film followed by a panel discussion with director Susanna Styron, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and other guests to be announced
A father’s secret. A daughter’s reckoning. A nation’s dark legacy.
Years after Lee Ed Frazier's death, his daughter Jan made a shocking discovery: as a young man her father had participated in a lynching. Now, as she attempts to uncover the truth about what happened, Jan must reckon with deeply conflicted feelings about the father she loved, grapple with how to hold her family accountable, and face the dawning awareness of her own unconscious racism.
Susanna Styron’s feature documentary credits include the award-winning OUT OF MY HEAD and 9/12:FROM CHAOS TO COMMUNITY. Her debut narrative feature, Columbia Pictures’ SHADRACH starring Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell, which she co-wrote and directed, premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was distributed theatrically worldwide.
Other narrative work includes Sidney Lumet’s TV series 100 CENTRE STREET (writer/director), the web series ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE (director) starring Brooke Adams and the award-winning shorts A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER (director) starring Reichard Beymer and Ally Sheedy, and HOUSE OF TEETH (writer/director).
Susanna’s work has been seen in film festivals around the world, in theatrical release, and on such outlets as HBO, Netflix and Amazon, among others.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or coauthored twenty-two books and created eighteen documentary films, including Finding Your Roots. His six-part PBS documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program-Long Form, as well as a Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and NAACP Image Award.
Tickets: $12 General Admission, $9 Member, $7 child (age 14 or younger)
Doors open for admissions 30 minutes prior to screening.
