Dallas Video Festival 2008

In its heyday, The Ville Neighborhood was the place to be for a black resident of St. Louis. Many notable people and institutions came out of the neighborhood; doctors and teachers were trained there, Annie Malone’s Poro hair products were produced there, and young Chuck Berry was brought up listening to the Antioch Baptist Church choir. Tina Turner, Arthur Ashe, and Barbara Jordan went to school in The Ville, at the first black high school west of the Mississippi. In the film, sixteen year-old Jermaine and eighty year-old Kathryn reflect on what means to live there today, how survival is more real than history. “Let’s see. You’re driving through a bad neighborhood. It’s gettin’ close to dark time. You stop at a stop sign. You see 5 or 6 of us standin’ right there. What are you gonna do? You turn your head straight, and start sweatin.’ Like it always happens. Am I lyin’?” Jermaine, 16 Shot on super 16mm film, combined with super 8 home movies, “The Ville” is a quiet contemplation of race, identity, fear, and acceptance in today's urban American landscape.