SYNOPSIS

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. -  John Lewis

It's 1966 in Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans. A young Black fisherman, Gary Duncan, tries to break up a fight between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm and the boy recoils like a snake. That night, police arrest 19-year-old Gary Duncan for assault on a minor.

After months of clashes, the public schools have been integrated by court order. But we are in the land of the white separatist despot, Leander Perez, who rules Plaquemines like his fiefdom, making sure that segregation sticks regardless of federal laws desegregating schools and mandating voting rights. Arresting men like Duncan keeps Black people in their place. With the help of a young attorney, Richard Sobol, Duncan bravely stands up to Perez. Systemic racism and pervasive anti-Semitism meet their match in decisive courtroom battles, including the U.S. Supreme Court; hate is vanquished by a powerful friendship that will last a lifetime. With the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and abroad, there is no more important story to tell today. The roots and the mechanics of hate groups are in full display in this dramatic story of a crime on the bayou.

Our nation is beginning to confront our past in order to understand our present, engaging in the slow process of ‘tearing’ down historical commemorations of oppressors; our film is a part of the replacement, the more truthful re-telling of our past. In it we see monuments dismantled, from the “pretend laws” of Jim Crow to anthemic music symbolically transformed. We see children water hosed then voting for the first time. We see Gary Duncan getting justice in the U.S. Supreme Court.

But as we witness protests in today’s streets, we are reminded there is much that remains to be done, even if our story suggests there is hope in Gary’s story and in the allyship it represents. For every Gary Duncan there are thousands of Black men incarcerated for touching a white boy’s arm.

A Crime on the Bayou is the third film in director Nancy Buirski's trilogy profiling brave individuals who fought for justice in and around the Civil Rights era, following The Loving Story and The Rape of Recy Taylor. Together this trilogy demonstrates that regular people standing up for their values are the root of progress. Mildred Loving, Recy Taylor and Gary Duncan did not set out to change history. But they remind us that anyone can. Important films have been made about racism – our film helps us to understand how the mechanics of white supremacy maintain racist institutions. We are inspired by those passionate individuals who work to defeat it and destroy the pervasive hate at its core.

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

SELECT TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

NANCY BUIRSKI
Director/Producer/Writer

Buirski is Director/Producer/Writer of THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR (2017); World Premiere, Venice Film Festival; North American Premiere, New York Film Festival. Awarded the prestigious Human Rights Nights Special Prize for Human Rights at the 74° Venice Biennale. Nominated for the NAACP Image Award and Peabody Award. TV broadcast on STARZ/HULU.
Buirski is Director/Producer/Writer of BY SIDNEY LUMET (2015; American Masters); World Premiere at Cannes Film Festival. She is Director/Producer/Writer of AFTERNOON OF A FAUN (2013; American Masters); World Premiere, New York Film Festival, International Premiere, 64th Berlinale, record-breaking U.S Theatrical release with Kino Lorber. She is Director/Producer/Writer of the Oscar shortlisted, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning THE LOVING STORY (2011; HBO) and a Producer of LOVING by Jeff Nichols.
Buirski will direct TANNY, a narrative version of AFTERNOON OF A FAUN and ENDANGERED, an animated feature based on award-winning novel of the same name by Eliot Schrefer.
Buirski founded and ran the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival from 1997 to 2008. She is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is represented by ICM.

BRENDA ROBINSON

Brenda Robinson is an entertainment attorney and partner in Gamechanger Films, an equity fund that finances feature films and television series by women and diverse storytellers. As a dedicated philanthropist in the arts and entertainment community, Brenda currently serves on the boards of Film Independent, The Representation Project, Chicken & Egg Pictures and the International Documentary Association (IDA). She is active in the Sundance Institute as a member of the Women at Sundance Leadership Council and serves as an advisor to The Redford Center. She is also a board member of Cinema/Chicago and the Chicago International Film Festival and currently serves as legal counsel to the festival. Brenda was most recently a financier on the Academy Award-winning documentary Icarus as well as Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Step. She is an executive producer on numerous projects including United Skates, alongside executive producer John Legend; The Great American Lie by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom; Jump Shot: The Kenny Sailors Story, alongside executive producer Steph Curry and Marian Anderson: The Whole World In Her Hands for PBS’ American Masters series.