Ernest Withers doc to open Indie Memphis Film Festival
Memphis photographer Ernest Withers is the subject of a new documentary. He’s seen here in the 1940s. (Courtesy Withers Family Trust)
A new documentary about Memphis photographer Ernest Withers will open the 25th Indie Memphis Film Festival on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at the Halloran Centre.
“The Picture Taker,” from producer and director Phil Bertelsen, takes on the life and work of the late Withers, a photographer who was one of the foremost chroniclers of Black American life during the early and mid-20th century, including during the height of the civil rights movement.
Withers, as was later revealed, was also serving as an FBI informant at the time.
“The Picture Taker” will seek to examine both Withers’ historically significant work and his complex life.
An Ernest Withers photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Lorraine Motel in 1966. (Courtesy Withers Family Trust)
Ernest Withers photo of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike. (Courtesy Withers Family Trust)
An Ernest Withers photo of an NAACP protester in 1960s Memphis. (Courtesy Withers Family Trust)
Bertelsen is an Emmy- and Peabody-award-winning director and producer whose most recent documentary work is the six-part series “Who Killed Malcolm X?” currently available on Netflix. The filmmaker will be on hand for a Q-and-A session at the screening.
The film’s trailer can be viewed below.
“‘The Picture Taker’ couldn’t have been made without the many Memphians who sat before and behind our cameras — opening their homes and hearts and lending their stories and creativity to this production,” Bertelsen said in a statement. “We look forward to bringing this story back home to the city that was Ernest Withers’ muse.”
Memphis-based historians Aram Goudsouzian and Charles McKinney served as consultants for the film.
The 25th edition of Indie Memphis will run Oct. 19-24 at multiple Memphis locations. The full festival schedule is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
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Ernest Withers Indie Memphis Film Festival The Picture Taker Phil BertelsenChris Herrington on demand
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He and his wife have two kids and, for reasons that sometimes elude him, three dogs.
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