ITVS/POV
Present
THE NEUTRAL GROUND
Directed and Written by CJ Hunt
Produced by Darcy McKinnon
Executive Produced by Roy Wood Jr, Sally Jo Fifer
World Premiere – 2021 Tribeca Film Festival – Juneteenth Programming
Winner – Special Jury Mention – 2021 Albert Maysles Award at Tribeca for Best New Documentary Director
Official Selection – 2021 AFI DOCS
About the film THE NEUTRAL GROUND
In 2015, director CJ HUNT begins filming the New Orleans City Council’s vote to remove four Confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, Hunt sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.
The result is THE NEUTRAL GROUND, Hunt’s smart, and bitterly funny look at America’s troubled romance with the Lost Cause. While the film is an exploration of race in America – it is also an exploration of his own racial identity as African American and Filipino American. Timely, funny and inspiring, this film is one of the most important documentaries of this moment. With the upcoming removal of the Teddy Roosevelt statue at New York City’s Museum of Natural History and other symbols of racism throughout country being taken down, this film is ripe to keep that conversation and dialogue going with the possibility of creating understanding and putting an end to racism.
About Director CJ Hunt
A comedian and filmmaker living in NYC, CJ is currently a field producer on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. He has also served as a staff writer for A&E’s Black and White, and a field producer for BET’s The Rundown with Robin Thede. Before working in late night, CJ spent nine years living in New Orleans where – in 2015 – he began filming what he thought would be a quick and easy confederate monument removal. CJ is an alumnus of Firelight Media’s Doc Lab and New Orleans Film Festival’s Emerging Voices program. He is also a 2020 New America Fellow and a regular host of The Moth. A graduate from Brown University’s Africana Studies department, CJ is endlessly fascinated by race and comedy’s ability to say what we can’t.
JULY 2 – JULY 8 THEATRICAL RELEASE PREMIERE – LAEMMLE GLENDALE THEATRES
JULY 5 – WORLD BROADCAST PREMIERE – AMERICAN DOCUMENTARIES | P.O.V. | PBS
JULY 5 – STREAMING BEGINS EXCLUSIVELY – PBS.ORG
