Directed and Written by CJ Hunt
Produced by Darcy McKinnon
Executive Produced by Roy Wood Jr, Sally Jo Fifer
The first trailer for writer and comedian CJ Hunt’s THE NEUTRAL GROUND has arrived ahead of the World Premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival! View the trailer here. The film will also screen at AFI DOCS next month ahead of its national television broadcast as the Opening Film for PBS POV’s 34th season on July 5th.
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.
Screening as part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Juneteenth Programming – a celebration of the richness of Black stories and storytellers from the African Diaspora – the film will screen outdoors on June 19 at Noon EST Pier 76 in Hudson River Park. Following the screening, a conversation with CJ Hunt, Executive Producer Roy Wood Jr. (The Daily Show), and Pulitzer-Prize winning creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones on confronting the ongoing legacy of America’s Original Sin.
World Premiere – 2021 Tribeca Film Festival – Part of Juneteenth Programming
Official Selection – 2021 AFI DOCS
Tribeca 2021 Screening Schedule:
June 19 at 12:00 PM at Pier 76 in Hudson River Park – In Person w/ Live Q&A
June 20 at 3:00 AM – Press/Industry Screening 1 – Virtual Screening
June 20 at 6:00 PM – Virtual Screening
Live Q&A at Tribeca as part of Juneteenth Programming:
Following the In Person Screening – A conversation with CJ Hunt, Executive Producer Roy Wood Jr. (The Daily Show),
and Pulitzer-Prize winning creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones on confronting the ongoing legacy of America’s Original Sin.
National TV Broadcast July 5th on PBS POV
About the film THE NEUTRAL GROUND
In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council’s vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.
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.
Leave a Reply