Flag Wars

What happens when gay white people move into a black working-class neighborhood?

Film Signature Image
Series
POV
Premiere Date
June 17, 2003
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2003 South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW)-Jury Prize
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2004 News and Documentary Emmy Awards-Outstanding Informational Programming
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2004 Peabody Awards-George Foster Peabody Award
    • Producer

    Linda Goode Bryant

    Linda Goode Bryant is an independent producer/director currently working on The Vote, a cinema verité documentary that follows the politics and passions triggered in a small town by the 2004 Presidential primaries to discover why Americans don’t vote. Her work has been shown in national and international festivals and film programs. She is a recipient… Show more of numerous grants and fellowships including an artist fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and individual artist grants from the New York State Council on the Arts. Show less

    Producer

    Laura Poitras

    Laura Poitras was nominated for an Academy Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Emmy Award for My Country, My Country (2006), a documentary about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. My Country, My Country was co-produced with ITVS, released theatrically by Zeitgeist Films, and broadcast on P.O.V. She received a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy… Show more and an Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (2003; made with Linda Goode Bryant), a documentary about gentrification that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and won the award for Best Documentary. Following My Country, My Country, The Oath is Poitras’s second documentary in a trilogy titled The New American Century about America post 9/11. The final film will focus on the 9/11 trials. Poitras is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She has attended the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Storytelling and Edit Lab as both a Fellow and creative advisor. She is currently working on The Guantanamo Project, a multi-media project to collect documents and artifacts from Guantanamo Bay Prison. Before making documentaries, she worked as a professional chef. She lives in New York City. Show less

    Other ITVS Films
    My Country, My Country
    The Oath

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    The Film

    Shot over a four-year period, Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras’ Flag Wars is a poignant and very personal look at a community in Columbus, Ohio, undergoing gentrification. What happens when gay, white homebuyers move into a working-class, black neighborhood? As the new residents restore the beautiful, but run-down homes, black homeowners must fight to hold onto their community and heritage. The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. Winner of the Jury Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival and a 2004 Peabody Award, Flag Wars is a candid, unvarnished portrait of privilege, poverty, and local politics taking place across America.

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