The Neutral Ground

Comedian C.J. Hunt tries to answer the question: Why is it so hard to break up with the Confederacy? as he tracks the removal of monuments.

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Funding Initiative
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Headshot cj hunt
Director/Wirter

Cecil Hunt

Director CJ Hunt is comedy writer and director living in NYC. He is currently a field producer on The Daily Show​. H​e has been a field producer for BET's The Rundown with Robin Thede​and a staff writer for A&E's Black and White​, ​and a cast member on MTV2's ​Vidiots. ​A member of the 2018 Firelight Media Documentary Lab, CJ is directing a documentary… Show more about the fight over confederate monuments in New Orleans. He spends his free time hosting The Moth, making faces in the mirror, and writing short films. A graduate from Brown University in Africana Studies, CJ is endlessly fascinated by race and comedy's ability to say what we can't. Show less

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Producer

Darcy McKinnon

Producer ​Darcy McKinnon​ is a documentary filmmaker, educator and Executive Director of ​NOVAC, the New Orleans Video Access Center, which has been supporting community-based media in Southeast Louisiana since 1972. She is a co-founder of ALL Y'ALL, the Southern Documentary Collective, with Elaine McMillion Sheldon. McKinnon's work in… Show more documentary includes the 2006 film Maquilapolis​ (broadcast on POV) and Live, Nude, Girls, UNITE! and the short doc ​Animals​. She produces documentary work with Southern filmmakers, and in addition to Neutral Ground is in early production on ​Commuted with director Nailah Jefferson, which explores the impact of Louisiana's criminal justice dysfunction through the portrait of the life of one woman. She also executive produced the award winning short documentary series Post Coastal, a community documentary project focusing on Louisiana’s coastal communities and their responses to climate change. Show less

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The Film

Comedian and filmmaker C.J. Hunt documents the dispute over the removal of four confederate monuments in New Orleans. As residents take sides on whether to remove or defend the so-called Lost Cause monuments, city life is marred by death threats and lawsuits. Expanding his scope, C.J. embarks on a journey across the country to find out what it would take to convince America to end its long romance with the Confederacy.

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