Join the Appalachian Justice Research Center (AJRC) on Wednesday, March 6th at Central Cinema (1205 N Central St.) for a screening of two short films - Calls from Home and Dwelling: A Measure of Life in the Atlanta Forest - which tell stories about how deep connections to the land and to loved ones seek to bridge separations created by the carceral state.

The films will be followed by a panel discussion with directors, Sylvia Ryerson and Sasha Tycko, and local community organizations, Community Defense of East Tennessee (CDET) and Knoxville HEART, moderated by UT professor Dr. Michelle Brown (Sociology) and Mergoat Magazine editor, Sorrel Inman.

In an intimate portrait of rural prison expansion, Calls From Home (www.callsfromhomefilm.com/) documents WMMT-FM’s longstanding radio show that sends familial messages of love over public airwaves to reach people incarcerated in Central Appalachia. For many, the show is a lifeline to the world outside. Directed by Sylvia Ryerson, a former DJ for the show, the film portrays the many forms of distance that rural prison building creates—and the ceaseless search to end this system of racialized mass incarceration and family separation.

One year into the occupation of the Atlanta forest, Dwelling followed a forest defender while they learned to build a hut by hand, envisioning a future lived off-the-grid. Dwelling in the forest becomes a practical experiment in making an ethical life in a society of unhindered growth and militarized police. Away from the spectacle of political conflict, this observational film directed by Sasha Tycko brings viewers into the contemplative labors of everyday life in the occupation to Defend the Atlanta Forest.

This film screening and discussion is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Appalachian Justice Research Center (https://ajrc.utk.edu/) and Mergoat Magazine, a publication that provides a collective, interdisciplinary record of the ecological situation throughout Southern Appalachia and the broader Southeast (https://mergoat.com/mergoat-magazine).

Free and open to the public.