RaMell Ross’s Academy Award-nominated Hale County This Morning, This Evening, one of the year’s most critically acclaimed films, is a dreamy and intimate journey through the world of Hale County, Alabama, a richly detailed glimpse into life in America’s Black Belt.
Full of sublime moments, the film immerses the viewer in the southern Black American experience in a place where Walker Evans and James Agee once chronicled the lives of poor white sharecropping families in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in the 1930s, but today is an oft-misunderstood African American community. The film is “pure cinematic poetry” wrote A.O. Scott in The New York Times.
The Filmmaker
RaMell Ross (Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Sound Recordist, Editor) earned a BA in both English and Sociology from Georgetown University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and his writing has appeared in such outlets as The New York Times. He was part of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2015, and a New Frontier Artist in Residence at the MIT Media Lab. In 2016, he was a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Prize, winner of an Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant and a Sundance Art of Nonfiction Fellow. In early 2017, he was selected for Rhode Island Foundation's Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Artist Fellowship. RaMell is currently on faculty at Brown University’s Visual Arts Department. Hale County This Morning, This Evening is his first feature documentary. He met Quincy while teaching a GED program in Greensboro, Alabama, and Daniel while coaching basketball at the local high school.
Directed, Filmed, Edited and Written by
RaMell Ross
Featuring (in order of appearance)
Quincy Bryant
Daniel Collins
Mary B. Collins
Latrenda “Boosie” Ash
Kyrie Bryant
Tomeko Elliott
Bert Williams
Nathaniel Davis
Karmyn Bryant
Korbyn Bryant
Shadedra Collins
Produced by
RaMell Ross
Joslyn Barnes
Su Kim
Co-Writer
Maya Krinsky
Edit Team
Robb Moss
Joslyn Barnes
Maya Krinsky
Creative Advisor
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Original Music by
Alex Somers
Scott Alario
Forest Kelley
Executive Producers
Danny Glover
Susan Rockefeller
Tony Tabatznik
Executive Producers for Field of Vision
Laura Poitras
Charlotte Cook
Co-Executive Producer
Lynda Weinman
Associate Producer
Sarah D’hanens
Location Sound Recordist
RaMell Ross
Production Accountant
Pandora Zolotor
Louverture Films Accountant
Sarisa Middleton
Assistant Editor
Anita H.M. Yu
Post Sound Co-Supervisor /Re-recording Mixer
Tony Volante
Location Sound Recordist / Post Sound Co-Supervisor / Re-recording Mixer
Dan Timmons
Mix Technician
Mark Amicucci
Sound Producer
Kelsea Wigmore
Post Production Services by
Technicolor PostWorks New York
Digital Intermediate Producer
Andrew McKay
Flame Artists
Sean Perry
Ross Hendrickson
Technical Assistants
Adrian Alvarez
Anthony Correia
Matthew O'Shaughnessy
Ashley Oakley
Michelle Perkowski
Patrick Rossi
Kirk Vaughan
Erich Waldorf
Production Assistant
Kami High
Production Counsel
Iddo Arad
Fair Use Counsel
Karen Shatzkin
Sound Editorial & Mix Services
Harbor Picture Company
Sound Engineer
Avi Laniado
General Manager
Darrell R. Smith
Account Executive
Jeremiah Hawkins
Digital Intermediate Colorist
Dave Francis
Technical Operations Manager
Carlos Monfort
Music Supervisor
Music Resources
Graphics and Titles
Felege Gebru
Errors & Omissions Insurance
Reiff & Associates
Distribution Advisory Services
Cinetic Media
Doc & Film International
Social Media Services
Chana Ginelle Ewing
Additional Appearances by
Demetric Anderson
Johuonte Biggs
Kierra Collins
Tiffany Collins
Jabaris Davis
Deon Wilson
Bessie Edwards
Joann B. Edwards
Ka’Shyra Edwards
Quency “Big Bear” Edwards
Reginald Evans
Jeremy Fortune
Melvin L. Green, Jr.
D’Lysia Harris
D’Miracle Harris
Gary Jackson
King Jayy
Derrell Johnson
Terrance Joiner
Kervin Jones
Jackrya Lewis
Leo Lewis III
Willie Lewis
Albany McCray
Harlem McCray
Javielle McGuffie
Maurice McGuffie
CarJavian Nixon
Xavier Nurse
Baron Nurse II
Kaniyah Robertson
Maxine Robertson
Trenyce Rollins
Ruben Stallworth
Isaic Williams
Justin Williams
SheMia Wilson
Archival Materials Provided by
T. Hayes Hunter
Edwin Middleton
“Lime Kiln Club Field Day” (1913)
Courtesy of The Modern Museum of Art (MoMA)
Music
“Gin & Tonic” and “Flashback”
Written and Performed by Forest Kelley
Published by Forest Kelley
“Friday Mix”
Written and Performed by Alex Somers and Scott Alario
Published by Alex Somers and Scott Alario
“With Yellow Eyes”, “Soymilk” and “Alligator”
Written and Performed by Alex Somers and Scott Alario
Published by Kobalt Music
“Meko’s Blues”
Written and Performed by Tomeko Elliott
“Stars Fell on Alabama”
Performed by Billie Holiday
Written by Mitchell Parish, Frank S. Perkins
Published by EMI Full Keel Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
Used courtesy of Verve Records by arrangement with Universal Music Enterprises
Fiscal Sponsor
Sustainable Markets Foundation
Acquired for Distribution by
ITVS
Funding Provided by
Ford Foundation | JustFilms
Cinereach
Lisa Kleiner Chanoff
Threshold Foundation
San Francisco Film Society Documentary Film Fund
Production Support Provided by
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
Tribeca Film Institute - Tribeca All Access
Original Series Funding Provided by
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Wyncote Foundation
The National Endowment for the Arts
HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING is a production of Idiom Film, LLC and Louverture Films, in association with Field of Vision.
This program was produced by IDIOM Film, LLC which is solely responsible for its content.