Welcome to heatcar productions

Welcome to HeatCar Productions

DOCUMENTARY CELEBRATES LIVES OF GUY AND CANDIE CARAWAN

Join us for the Knoxville Premiere and Musical Celebration of THE TELLING TAKES ME HOME

(Knoxville, TN)

Growing up in a log cabin in East Tennessee is not all that unusual. But when that cabin is located near the world-renowned Highlander Center and when your parents are folk singers who devote their lives to the struggle for peace and civil rights for both African Americans and Appalachian coal miners, then you have a story to tell.

In her new film THE TELLING TAKES ME HOME, Heather Carawan beautifully tells her story of growing up in the forefront of social change.

On Saturday, May 21, at 7:30 p.m. the Knox County Public Library will screen THE TELLING TAKES ME HOME in the auditorium of the East Tennessee History Center. The half-hour documentary uses music and memory to tell the story of Guy and Candie Carawan who have carried their work from the deep south of the Civil Rights Movement into today’s daunting struggle for peace. Interweaving past and present, the film maker integrates her own reflections on growing up in a rich musical and political landscape.

The film includes footage from Highlander Research and Education Center which was founded founded in 1932 by Myles Horton and Don West. Highlander has always served as an adult education center for poor and working people in their struggle against poverty, prejudice and environmental destruction. Dr. Martin Luther King studied there as did Rosa Parks just a few weeks before she refused to give up her seat on the bus, thus sparking the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott.

Guy and Candie Carawan met at Highlander in 1960. He was working there as a volunteer song leader and musician and she came as a workshop participant. They joined forces and eventually became full-time staff members at The Highlander Center. Believing that music is a way of bringing people together, they helped make freedom songs such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Eyes on the Prize” anthems of the Civil Rights movement.

Heather Carawan spent most of her childhood at Highlander. The film maker is now based in the San Francisco bay area, where she has just completed an MFA at San Francisco State University. She will be joined by her parents at the Saturday screening.

Following the film there will be a musical celebration with many Knoxville artists featured in the film including Nancy Brennan Strange, Rebecca Bryant, George Reynolds, Dan Gammon, Rich Kirby, Guy, Candie & Evan Carawan. The evening's host is Linda Parris Bailey of the Carpetbag Theater.

The screening is free and open to the public. The East Tennessee History Center is located at 601 South Gay Street in Knoxville. For information about the event, contact Nelda Hill at the Library: (865) 215-8729.