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“PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI” director, Paul Saltzman
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 17, 8:30 pm — Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City]
My approach to telling our story was not influenced by the changes in the way people are beginning to view cinema. Intimacy, and the freedom of the senior students at Charleston High to share their feelings with us, the audience, was paramount. By inviting the students to create their own video diaries, by not seeking to make any editorial points as a filmmaker, courage and cowardice show themselves. The heart of our story — racial feelings and the end, on April 19, 2008, of separate white and black proms in the one high school in Charleston, Mississippi — required a non-intrusive, straightforward approach. I believe these are universal ways to approach intimate storytelling, irrespective of changes to the world of cinema viewing.
“Somos dueños de lo que decimos y esclavos de lo que callamos.”
“We’re owners of what we say and slaves of what we silence.”
