Varsity 1 Sunday, April 15, 2018 - 09:30 AM

Two Trains Runnin'

Two Trains Runnin’

Documentary Feature

80 minutes

2017

Director(s): Sam Pollard

USA

Synopsis

Oregon Premiere

America was deeply divided by race and politics in June, 1964. During Freedom Summer, activists traveled to Mississippi to join the civil rights movement against KKK violence and racist police forces in Southern towns. At the same time, a group of college students and record collectors also traveled to Mississippi, but with a different mission: to find forgotten African-American blues legends Son House and Skip James. Soon, these two efforts would collide in spectacular and tragic fashion. Narrated by Common, and featuring the music of Gary Clark, Jr., the film pays tribute to a pioneering generation of musicians and cuts to the heart of our present moment, offering a crucial vantage from which to view the evolving dynamics of race in America.

Director’s Statement

For more than thirty years, I have had the good fortune to work on films about the blues and films about the civil rights movement. Two Trains Runnin’ is the first time I was given the task of combining both. This film is about the journey of a group of white youth who searched to find the origins of American culture at a time of violence when America was struggling to come to grips with its racial divide. But we are also telling a parallel story of another group of white youth who had, on the surface, a different mission. The journey of both groups was really a journey to understand who we are as Americans, what brought us together, and what still divides us.