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Pitt-Bradford to hold screening of flag documentary

Film looks over the fight over Mississippi’s state flag

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will hold a screening of the documentary film “Look Away, Look Away” at 6 p.m. Oct 18 in the Bromeley Family Theater.

The event is free and open to the public. Those attending will be asked to provide their contact information and wear a face covering while inside Blaisdell Hall.

A question-and-answer session with filmmaker Patrick O’Connor will follow the film, which captures the fierce five-year battle over the Mississippi state flag. Mississippi was the only state that incorporated a Confederate battle flag as part of its state flag’s design. It adopted a new flag that went into service earlier this year.

Following the murder of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, a national reckoning sparked a debate around the meaning of the Confederate flag.

Connor’s documentary introduces the audience to an array of activists and reveals how race, heritage and long-simmering grievances over the Civil War shape our sense of who we are as Americans.

“Look Away, Look Away” is the recent winner of the Audience Award for the best documentary, best film and best Mississippi film at the Oxford (Miss.) Film Festival.

O’Connor is an award-winning writer and director whose most recent documentary film, “The Invisible Patients,” had its national PBS broadcast premiere on America Reframed in 2018.

That film also screened at the Heartland, Cucalorus, Chicago International, Social Change and Indy Film Festivals, as well as at dozens of universities and National conferences on bioethics and healthcare.

For more information, visit lookawaylookaway.com.

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