NYC: The Loving Story Film Opens December 10

 Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County,

Virginia in April 1965

The Loving Story
By Michelle Orange Wednesday, Dec 5 2012

Well-timed and well crafted in equal measures, The Loving Story is a thoughtful, terrifically intimate account of the case that dismantled this country's anti-miscegenation laws 100 years after the abolition of slavery. The story of Virginia couple Mildred and Richard Loving's efforts to live and love each other freely captures a critical moment in a civil rights movement whose most recent strides—for same-sex marriage—are just a few weeks old. First-time director Nancy Buirski's focus on the constitutional tangles that brought Loving v. Virginia before the Supreme Court in 1967 also complement Lincoln's warm, wonky embrace of the democratic procedural. A wealth of archival footage gives The Loving Story an oddly modern quality. We watch the supremely humble couple (Richard was white; Mildred part black and part Native American) interacting at home, tolerating journalists, conferring with attorneys, and recounting their path to the courtroom: Having been arrested in their home state, the Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. Mildred's distressed letter to Bobby Kennedy set things rolling. Equally compelling is footage of the dauntless young lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, who saw much to be gained in one couple's belief in their rights and even more to be cut away.


Details

The Loving Story
Directed by Nancy Buirski
Icarus Films
Opens December 10, Maysles Cinema


Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story

              Grey Villet:  A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes          

              On Exhibit: Grey Villet's Photographs of The Lovings 

VALENTINE'S DAY 2012

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Vivian Maier: New York, 1954

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Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving laughing and watching television in their living room,

King and Queen County, Virginia, 1965

 HBO: The Loving Story Tuesday, February 14 at 9 PM (check local listings)


The New York Times: Scenes From a Marriage That Segregationists Tried to Break Up

Time Light Box: The Loving Story: Loving v. Virginia and the Photographs of Grey Villet

Washington Post: Virginia’s Caroline County, ‘symbolic of Main Street USA’

Slide show:
About 6 percent of Caroline Middle School’s population is multiracial, a statistic that would not be possible without Mildred and Richard Loving, a couple from the school’s county whose Supreme Court case 45 years ago paved the way for mixed-race marriages

Mother Jones: The Loving Story: How One Interracial Couple Changed a Nation

Entertainment Weekly:  A Moving Tale Of Love And Civil Rights

Grey Villet: The Lovings




Related: Happy Valentine's Day 2011

On Exhibit: Grey Villet's Photographs of The Lovings

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 Grey Villet

 Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County, Virginia in April 1965

Concurrent with the opening of Vivian Maier: Discovered, we are pleased to exhibit selected photographs Grey Villet shot of the Richard and Mildred Loving for Life magazine in 1965. "Grey Villet: The Lovings" will continue through March 18, 2012.

Grey Villet took over 2,400 frames of the Lovings for Life in 1965 but the magazine did not run the story until March 18, 1966, when the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling and the Lovings’ case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tone of the piece, as well as the selected images, was cool and neutral; the three published images that include both Mildred and Richard are extremely chaste and do not capture the emotional bond between them as so many of Villet’s other images do. Life, like many other media outlets, did not want to address the topic of interracial sex directly for fear of offending popular opinion.

The Loving Story, a documentary film, tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving to examine the drama, the history, and the current state of interracial marriage and tolerance in the United States. It's World Premiere was at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2011, and the On-air premiere of The Loving Story will be on HBO, February 14, Valentine’s Day, 2012.

A selection of Grey Villet's photographs, including several of The Lovings, will also be on exhibit during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York March 28 - April 1, at Monroe Gallery Booth #419.

Related:

NPR: The Loving War: How Black History Is Both Black And White

Richmond Times Dispatch: HBO documentary examines Lovings' struggle

Life of Marital Bliss (Segregation Laws Aside)

Grey Villet: The Lovings

Life of Marital Bliss (Segregation Laws Aside)

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County,

Virginia in April 1965

We have been covering the forthcoming documentary film about Mildren and Richard Loving, an inter-racial couple who made civil-rights history. "The Loving Story" film will premiere on HBO on Valentine's day, February 14. An exhibition of Grey Villet's vintage photographs is currently on exhibition at the International Center of Photography.

Today's New York Times has a review of the exhibit:

"Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Virginia whose marriage prompted a benchmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturning state miscegenation laws, are portrayed in “The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet” as heroes who fell into history by accident.

 Grey Villet,  a South African photographer who worked for Life magazine, entered the story in 1965 when he traveled to Virginia to photograph the family, by then living together under an unofficial amnesty with their three children. Mr. Villet shot 73 rolls of film, but Life published only 9 images. The photographer then sent 70 prints to the Lovings. The vintage prints in this show are from that collection, as well as from Mr. Villet’s estate.

The images represent the heyday of social documentary, but also the photo-essay format established by magazines like Life and Look. There is the whiff of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and other 1930s documentarians, but also of W. Eugene Smith, a revered midcentury photo essayist, and David Goldblatt, a South African chronicler of apartheid"  Full post and photographs here.

Concurrently, Monroe Gallery of Photography is opening the exhibition "Grey Villet: The Lovings" on February 3, concurrent with the exhibition "Vivian Maier: Discovered". The exhibition continues through March 18, and Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings will be on exhibit during the AIPAD Photography Show March 29 - April 1 at Monroe Gallery, Booth #419. Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to represent the Estate of Grey Villet.

Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story

Director's Interview: The Loving Story

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving,

King and Queen County, Virginia in April 1965

This is a compelling, riveting, promotional clip from the HBO documentary "The Loving Story":

Via HBO:  "The Loving Story", Director Nancy Buirski interview

"Almighty God created the races....The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mate"

Based on an anonymous tip that the Lovings were illegally living as a married couple in Caroline County, sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies burst into the Lovings’ bedroom on July 11, 1958 at 2 a.m. When Richard explained that the woman in bed with him was his wife, Brooks replied, “Not here she’s not.”

HBO and the Museum of Tolerance invite you and a guest to a special screening of

THE LOVING STORY

An exclusive screening for Museum of Tolerance members only
 Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7:00pm

A racially-charged criminal trial and a heart-rending love story converge in this documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving, a part-black, part-Indian woman married to a white man in Jim Crow era Virginia. Thrown into rat-infested jails and exiled from their hometown for 25 years, the Lovings fought back and changed history. They were paired with two young and ambitious lawyers who were driven to pave the way for social justice and equal rights through a historic Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia. THE LOVING STORY takes us on a journey into the heart of race relations in America. But, in the end, it is a poignant love story of two people who simply wanted to live in the place they called home.

This film, with its contemporary parallels, will live on as record of monumental change, not just in civil rights then, but in the human right to pursue happiness regardless of color, gender or creed.
Q & A with Director Nancy Buirski and Producer Elisabeth Haviland James.
Dessert reception to follow.

There is no charge for the screening but pre-registration is required.
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT

Download a flyer here

More about The Loving Story movie here

View Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings in Los Angeles during photo la, January 12 - 16, at Monroe Gallery of Photography Booth B-500.

Related: New York Times feature: Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings; International Center of Photography exhibit

John Edwin Mason: Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965

Great read by John Edwin Mason: Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965

Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving watching drag races from the pit area, Sumerduck dragway, Sumerduck, Va., 1965



More about the story of Richard and Mildred Loving.

The Case of Loving v. Bigotry

Hands of Mildred and Richard Loving on their kitchen table, King and Queen County, Va

Photograph by Grey Villet

Via The New York Times Sunday Magazine

January 1, 2012

In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings — Mildred, who was of African-American and Native American descent, and Richard, a bricklayer with a blond buzz cut — were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. In January, the International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965. That exhibit is complemented by an HBO documentary, ‘‘The Loving Story,’’ directed by Nancy Buirski, which will be shown on HBO on Feb. 14. The film tells of the Lovings’ struggle to return home after living in exile in Washington, where Mildred, gentle in person but persistent on paper, wrote pleading letters to Robert F. Kennedy and the A.C.L.U. Two lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court, which struck down miscegenation laws in more than a dozen states. The Lovings’ belief in the simple rightness of their plea never wavered. Asked by one of his lawyers if he had a message for the Supreme Court, Richard said he did: ‘‘Tell the court I love my wife.’’

Julie Bosman

New York Times Slideshow here

The Loving Story Movie Website

Exhibit: International Center of Photography January 20 - May 6, 2012

Special screening in Los Angeles January 10, 2012 with HBO at the Museum of Tolerance.

Additionally, on January 17th, The Loving Story will screen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, DC.

Grey Villet's photographs are available from Monroe Gallery of Photography. View selected photographs of the Lovings during photo la at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Booth B-500.