In 2015 director CJ Hunt was living in New Orleans when the City Council voted to remove four Confederate monuments. After what seemed to be a straight forward process was interrupted by death threats and vandalism, Hunt picked up his camera and set off across the South to document America's troubled romance with the Confederacy.
Interviewing historians, his dad, activists, artists and apologists, while throwing himself into the middle of protests, re-enactments and rebellions, Hunt investigates why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much imaginative and political power in contemporary America. The Neutral Groundbroadcasts on PBS on July 5th at 9:30pm (check local listings). Hunt was recently awarded the Special Jury Mention for the 2021 Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Events & panels featuring the filmmakers in conversation with artists, scholars and activists
Director CJ Hunt joined Ericka Dilday, Lecia Brooks and Bree Newsome for a POV and Southern Poverty Law Center panel discussion about Confederate monuments.
CJ Hunt joined writer, poet and scholar Clint Smith III for a conversation about empathy, history and speaking to a younger self.
In The News
Select press coverage, interviews and related stories
"The Neutral Ground” neatly balances wry bemusement with a more sobering history of Louisiana and the South than many locals get in school" - Peter Debruge, Variety
Feature in the Associated Press/The Washington Post
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Bertha Foundation, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Charitable Trust, Park Foundation, Sage Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Abby Pucker, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
