Southern Journey (revisited)

Following the success of The Ballad of Shirley Collins, directors Rob Curry and Tim Plester return with a companion piece, that retraces the route of the iconic 'Southern Journey' song-collecting trip from 1959 in the present day. Set against the incendiary backdrop of the 2018 US mid-term elections, the film is accompanied by a glorious soundtrack of blues and bluegrass, hollers and spirituals.

The music recorded on the Southern Journey provided inspiration to generations of singers and musicians, and formed the backbone of the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers' "O Brother Where Art Thou". The film celebrates these recordings and showcases some of the brightest stars working in the medium, including The Local Honeys, The Como Mamas and Anna & Elizabeth.

Both music documentary and road movie, the film follows the route Shirley Collins took with her then-lover Alan Lomax in 1959, travelling the back roads of the rural South. While the focus is on the transcendental roots music of the region, the film also serves as a corrective to the many reductive stereotypes about white and black Southerners, and offers a message of conciliation for our divided times.