RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, 3/26/2024 — The award-winning PBS series Reel South has announced a new season of exemplary films documenting the cultures and histories that are redefining the American South. Films will be released weekly beginning April 8, 2024, on the free PBS App and broadcast beginning April 11, 2024, on PBS NC.

Presented as six episodes, these films bring forward a cache of archival footage, photographs, mixed media and headlines past and present to extoll missing stories from our shared military, health and spiritual histories. 

“This season adds new depth to the historical records the U.S. and the American South have preserved, and it challenges Americans to ask what defines and who establishes our collective posterity,” said Reel South series producer Nick Price. “Above all, each film showcases the power of human connection and the communities created in any aftermath.” 

Season 9 of Reel South opens with two shorts that feature overlooked perspectives from the Vietnam War and the impacts of racism from the era: David Brodie’s The Volunteer and Patrick Longstreth’s The Day That Shook Georgia. The Volunteer reunites a Vietnam veteran with the soldier who saved his life during an anti-Asian act of racism. The Day That Shook Georgia helps re-center one of the worst industrial accidents in American history and the predominantly Black women who fell victim to the negligence. 

“Reel South’s unique vantage and PBS’ trusted platform is the perfect partnership to highlight the underrepresented histories buried in America’s compelling past and present. These films speak to the importance of regional perspectives to help inform our national story,” said PBS Plus Director of Programming Michael E. Tang. 

Two feature films are presented this season: Matthew Hashiguchi’s The Only Doctor, a story of a rural medical clinic in southern Georgia; and Eliecer Jimenez Almeida’s Veritas, which retells the calamitous history of the 1962 Bay of Pigs invasion through the personal interviews of the Cuban exiles who felt abandoned by the U.S. government. 

On April 25, four shorts will air together in a detailed curation of stories set at home and abroad. This program explores the collective action to archive and preserve our physical and spiritual selves. 

On May 9, Heather Courtney’s film For the Record, whose central protagonist narrates the season trailer, premieres alongside Thom Southerland’s I’m the Girl. Unearthed in these two films are the important stories of any town’s record and the people who keep it. 

NOTE: Locally, on Panhandle PBS, For the Record will air on Sunday, May 12, at 1 pm.

“For the past decade, Reel South has provided filmmakers working in our region the opportunity to get their powerful films seen across the country. As the American South continues to drive the national conversation, these stories provide a well-needed, authentic lens into our communities and cultures,” said Rachel Raney, PBS North Carolina’s Director of National Productions and co-creator/co-executive producer of the series. 

Finally, Reel South concludes its ninth season with “Land-scraped Landscapes,” an hour-long program of original shorts that were commissioned and produced last year. Five films, directed by filmmakers representing diverse backgrounds and perspectives, engage the spiritual and existential challenges of the South’s diverse landscapes. 

 Watch the season trailer. >