This remarkable new documentary from Raymond De Felitta (“City Island”) fruitfully revisits the aftermath of a TV doc that his father, Frank, produced for NBC in 1965.
Shooting on location in Greenwood, Miss., the elder De Felitta interviewed Booker Wright about his experiences encountering racism while working as a waiter in a whites-only restaurant.
Wright’s powerful confession that “I have to smile — the meaner the man be, the more you smile, although you’re crying inside,” repeated several times in Raymond’s documentary, had severe consequences.
Wright lost his job, his own bar for blacks was destroyed and he was pistol-whipped by a local cop, who was never charged. He was murdered several years later under murky circumstances.
Nearly 40 years later, the father-and-son filmmakers return to Greenwood, where they join Wright’s granddaughter in screening the original documentary for townspeople.
“Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story” doesn’t flinch from asking tough questions about how things have changed in Greenwood, journalistic responsibility or exactly how aware Booker Wright was of what he was trying to accomplish, and its potential cost.