America’s First Major Festival for Historical Docs Is Coming to Savannah, March 4th – 8th

Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns has announced that America’s first major national film festival exclusively for historical documentaries will launch March 4th-8th, in Savannah, GA. Burns states, “the inaugural Hindsight Film Festival will showcase the kind of films that I love, ones that make you say ‘I had no idea about the history that connects us all.’” The festival is sponsored by The Better Angels Society, a non-profit dedicated to telling stories about American history through documentary films, and known for the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. Based at the Otis S. Johnson Ph.D. Cultural Arts Center, and other venues around town, the festival will showcase 15 feature films and 30 short films.

Founder and Director Pat Longstreth was selected for the 2023 Better Angels Lavine Fellowship for his film The Day That Shook Georgia. Longstreth states, “While attending festivals with my films, I noticed a growing array of creative historical documentaries. But they only make up a small portion of the total program, and they rarely get top billing.” Over the last year he has been working to make Savannah, GA the new home for historical documentaries, with quarterly screenings and now the first five-day festival of its kind, with Q&As, panel discussions, social events, and a Sunday Awards luncheon.

The festival opens on Wednesday, March 4th at 11am, with a free public screening of Behind the Lines, which captures American history through war letters and is narrated by Annette Bening, at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

The festival closes on Sunday, March 8th at 4pm, with a 50th Anniversary screening of Harlan County, USA (1976) with two-time Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple in person, followed by a Q&A moderated by George Dawes Green, celebrated novelist and the founder of NPR’s The Moth.

With a full slate of Oscar, Emmy, and Peabody winning filmmakers in attendance, the event is shaping up to be a dynamic gathering for anyone looking to explore our shared past from fresh perspectives.

The schedule, film guide, and ticket sales are available on the festival website. You can follow Hindsight Film Festival on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. Please reach out to Festival Director Pat Longstreth (pat@hindsightfilmfestival.com) with any questions.

See you on March 4th!