Moving Midway

Film critic Godfrey Cheshire has had a lifelong fascination with Midway, his family’s ancestral plantation in North Carolina. When his cousin Charlie Silver announces plans to move the old home to escape Raleigh’s urban sprawl, Cheshire films the ensuing family controversy as well as the visually spectacular move itself. He also probes the Southern plantation’s enormous impact on American history and pop culture—including music like blues and gospel, and movies from The Birth of a Nation (based on Cheshire’s family) to Roots. Cheshire’s journey includes an ongoing dialogue with New York University professor Robert Hinton, whose grandfather was born a slave at Midway, and the discovery that he has 100 black cousins, some eager to understand their connection to the plantation.

Director/Producer/Writer: Godfrey Cheshire
Editor: Ramsey Fendall
Cinematographer: Jay Spain