Welcome to the 15th Annual Sidewalk Film Festival, we are so glad you are here and hope this interactive schedule makes it easy for you to navigate this year’s event. Read on for all the details about the 2013 line-up of films, panels, and parties. Plus, you can learn about our special guests, sponsors and more.
*Please note that specifics about each SHORTS are available by viewing the decription for a selected Shorts Block.
In the 1950s and '60s, the epic battle to end institutional racism reverberated across the South. Many of the pivotal mileposts in the civil rights movement happened in Alabama, where segregation's hold was especially severe and unforgiving. One event came to symbolize Southern resistance: Segregationist Governor George Wallace's stand 'in the schoolhouse door' at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. Wallace fulfilled a campaign pledge by temporarily blocking the admission of two African-American students, but he forever planted his feet on the wrong side of history. Vivian Malone and James Hood registered for classes without incident, becoming iconic figures in the civil rights struggle. Yet, much less is known about the athletic pioneers who followed in their footsteps.
Written and directed by sports author Keith Dunnavant, Three Days At Foster tells a powerful, largely unknown story about the civil rights movement, focusing on several courageous athletes who challenged the last bastion of segregation in the shadow of George Wallace's infamy: Danny Treadwell, who integrated the state basketball tournament at Foster; Dock Rone, Andrew Pernell and Arthur Dunning, who walked on to the all-white Alabama football team in 1967 but have largely been lost to history; Wendell Hudson, UA’s first African-American scholarship athlete; and Wilbur Jackson, the first black man signed by Paul “Bear” Bryant’s football program. Intimate and revealing, it is a story about personal struggle and triumph, and ultimately, about the power of sports to touch hearts, change minds and heal a state’s wounds.
