Cane River
Once-Lost Film ‘Cane River’ Available on Disc From Oscilloscope
August 19, 2020
The once-lost film Cane River is available now on DVD and Blu-ray Disc from Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Written, produced, and directed by Emmy Award-winning documentarian Horace B. Jenkins, and crafted by an entirely African American cast and crew, the 1982 film is a racially-charged love story in Natchitoches Parish, a “free community of color” in Lousiana. A budding, forbidden romance lays bare the tensions between two black communities, both descended from slaves but of disparate opportunity — the light-skinned, property-owning Creoles and the darker-skinned, more disenfranchised families of the area.
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The film — an official selection at Ebertfest, the New Orleans Film Festival, and To Save and Project/MOMA — disappeared for decades after Jenkins died suddenly following the film’s completion. It’s available now for the first time in nearly 40 years in a new, restored, digital transfer. Special features include an archival TV interview with Jenkins; a new video interview with stars Richard Romain and Tommye Myrick; a new audio essay by Sacha Jenkins, son of the director; a post-screening discussion at Ebertfest (2019); and the theaterical trailer.