MOVING MIDWAY

MOVING MIDWAY (USA, 2008, 98 min.)

When New York film critic Godfrey Cheshire returns home to North Carolina in early 2004 and hears that his cousin Charlie Silver plans to uproot and move the buildings of Midway Plantation, their family’s ancestral home, to escape encroaching suburban sprawl, an extraordinary, emotional journey begins. Charlie’s plan is a controversial one within their extended family. Some fear the move will destroy Midway. Others worry about the reaction of the plantation’s ghosts, including Miss Mary “Mimi” Hinton, Midway’s eccentric owner when Charlie and Godfrey were kids. There’s another group who may be concerned too. Charlie says he recently met a man who claims their family has a large, previously unknown African-American branch, due to a liaison between Midway’s builder and a plantation slave. Back in New York, Cheshire fortuitously encounters Dr. Robert Hinton, an NYU professor of African-American studies who says his grandfather was born a slave at Midway. While beginning a dialogue on the meaning of Midway from their very different perspectives, Cheshire and Dr. Hinton examine how the Southern plantation, a crucial economic institution in early America, generated a powerful, bitterly contested mythology that was at the center of a string of American cultural milestones, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Birth of a Nation to Gone with the Wind and Roots (—movingmidway.com). Directed by Godfrey Cheshire. Produced by Vincent Farrell.

Discussion with filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire follows screening.

Ticket/Reservation Info:

$10 for National Building Museum (NBM) Members; $12 for Non Members; $10 Students. Prepaid registration required. Walk-in registration based on availability. To purchase tickets, please visit www.nbm.org or call 202-272-2448.

National Building Museum, 401 F St., NW
(METRO: Judiciary Square)