HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING

Hale County is located in Alabama, in the so-called Black Belt, and thus in the midst of the historic South with all its unfortunate memories. Here, the photographer and filmmaker RaMell Ross has among other things worked as a teacher and basketball coach. During his tenure, he met his protagonists – Quincy, a young family father and Daniel, who dreams of a sports scholarship – long before he decided to capture the reality of these two men and the black community of Hale County with his camera. Ross – who in the good old independent tradition was responsible for the directing, production, screenplay, cinematography, sound-recording and editing of his film – worked on his experimental documentary for five years, and he has named Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep as an important source of inspiration. The photographer’s eye becomes noticeable in the lyrical montage of everyday moments, scenic fragments and the interplay of light and shadow. He brings to the foreground of the story what usually remains in the background, and enables insight by using empty spaces to evoke an awareness of the clichés that usually fill them, but which this film avoids.