DC/DOX '26: Famous Director Goes Beyond Tragic Event - Must Buy Ticket

DC/DOX '26, the celebration of documentaries, is one of the best film festivals in the DMV. For four days - June 11-14 - the filmfest will explore a plethora of fascinating subjects. See the whole schedule here.

(The date of the film we're seeing is June 14 at 7pm - apologies for initial misprint.)

For the ArtHouse, we'll see The Lorraine, the first feature-length documentary about the iconic Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and its owners, Walter and Loree Bailey. A safe haven for African Americans traveling during segregation and Jim Crow laws in the United States, the Lorraine is most widely remembered for one horrific event: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony outside Room 306.

Tickets cost $17 and can be purchased here. It will sell out, I believe. Woolly Mammoth Theater is a great venue. We'll do something social probably before nearby.

WAS JUST TOLD THAT THE DIRECTOR WILL BE THERE FOR A DISCUSSION AFTER. VERY COOL. Throughout his career, director Sam Pollard has received numerous awards and honors. In 1998, he was nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award for 4 Little Girls with Spike Lee. He won a Peabody Award for When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts in 2006 and received three Emmy Awards between 2007 and 2010. He also received the International Documentary Association’s Avid Excellence in Editing Award in 2008 and their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, followed by a Career Achievement Peabody Award in 2021.

But the story of the Lorraine is far greater than that one tragic day. This documentary captures the astonishing and inspiring story of an enterprising Black couple’s pursuit of the American Dream, told through the voices of those who lived it. Their purchase of the motel in 1945 laid the foundation for a hub of social, political, and creative power, making the Lorraine a cradle of innovation and community-building. Civil rights demonstrations were planned there. Musical hits were written there. The film captures it all, including the Black community’s determined effort decades later to save the building, preserving both the history that unfolded there and the powerful symbolism it continues to embody.