Community Preview: STORIES FROM THE BALCONY
Directed by Joanna Hay
Free, first come, first served

Twenty years in the making, Stories from the Balcony is a documentary film about growing up going to the movies at the Grand Theatre in Frankfort, Kentucky during the era of Jim Crow segregation. It is the story of community, love, and belonging, despite the discrimination and degradation faced by the town’s Black community, who were relegated to the balcony.

The film features George C. Wolfe, Sheila Mason Burton, Mike Fields, Bobby Jones, Vinson Parsons, Bill Crumbaugh, Benny Mapp, Camelia Tinsley, and many others. Katima Smith-Willis’s voice brings a youthful perspective to the story while Mary Jackson serves as narrator. 2026, U.S., DCP, 46 minutes. Recommended for 13+

Includes a post-screening discussion with the film’s producer and director Joanna Hay and three of the documentary’s subjects: Bobby Jones, Sheila Mason-Burton, and Katima Smith-Willis.