The Southern Documentary Project is an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and shares the Center’s core mission to document, interpret, and teach about the U.S. South through critical research and public engagement. In addition to telling our own complicated stories about the South, the Southern Documentary Project staff is equally focused on training the next generation of storytellers.
SouthDocs teaches and mentors undergraduate and graduate students in the Southern Studies academic programs. Students come to the program with a range of backgrounds and experiences in visual storytelling. Some have never used a camera before and others are experienced filmmakers interested in applying their craft to telling the stories of the South. Southern Studies graduate students can pursue a documentary track MA degree as well as an MFA in Documentary Expression. Each semester we show off our student work in a documentary showcase that shows the full scope of our programs.
Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
The Southern Documentary Project is an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, whose mission statement can be found here. For SouthDocs, that affiliation means a commitment to providing space for multiple stories and storytellers. A commitment to equity and inclusion begins with our staff, and SouthDocs works to recruit and retain colleagues who are not only exemplary storytellers, but who also represent the rich diversity that makes our stories worth telling. A staff that truly reflects our region will also attract talented and diverse students. As we look to the future, SouthDocs is also committed to seeking collaborators throughout the region to help us identify and tell stories within their communities. Actively engaging specific diverse communities throughout the South and helping them tell their own stories is our clearest example of a commitment to equity and inclusion.
WHO WE ARE
Affiliated Faculty + Filmmakers
Annemarie Anderson – Assistant Professor of Practice and SFA Lead Oral Historian
A Florida native, Annemarie Anderson received a master’s degree in oral history from the University of Florida in 2017, the first graduate of that program. She also earned her bachelor’s degree in English and history from the University of Florida. In 2022, she earned her MFA in Documentary Expression from the University of Mississippi. She is the Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral historian and travels across the South collecting stories of people who grow, cook, eat, and serve southern food.
Areas of focus: Florida history and developing a visual documentary practice
annemarie@southernfoodways.org
Zaire Love – Producer/Director + Adj Asst Professor of Southern Culture + Pihakis Documentary Filmmaker (SFA)
Zaire Love [azairelovejunt] is an award-winning filmmaker, music maker, writer, and educator whose mission is to honor, amplify, and immortalize the stories and voices of the Black South focusing most of her work in Memphis, TN, and Mississippi. While Zaire’s work extends beyond the Black South, bringing honor to it, its people, its traditions, and its cultures in the past, present, and future is her life’s work.
Zaire has been awarded honors at multiple film festivals, made history by being the first filmmaker to ever win Best Hometowner Documentary Short and Best Hometowner Narrative Short at the Indie Memphis in the same year [2023], created work for PBS, and granted the If/Then and HULU grant to produce her award-winning short documentary, SLICE, which is now a The New Yorker Documentary. Her work has also been featured on STARZ and Raedio.
Zaire Love is a graduate of Spelman College [BA], Houston Baptist University [M. Ed], and the University of Mississippi [MFA]. She directs the Southern Foodways Alliance film program and is the Creative Director at Scalawag Magazine. She is writing new narrative scripts and exploring new documentary ideas with her studio, Creative Cornbread.
John Rash – Assistant Professor of Film Production & Southern Studies
John Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who has worked as visual storyteller and educator in the United States and China. John earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. John’s research and teaching are focused on Documentary Studies, Southern Studies, film production, avant-garde cinema, expanded cinema, and moving-image installation.
As the founder / curator of the Southern Punk Archive, John works to preserve the music, stories, and ephemera from vibrant D.I.Y. punk and hardcore communities throughout the American South. John’s creative work explores cultural outsiders and environmental topics through lens-based media as informed by documentary traditions. John was the recipient of the Soul of Southern Film award from Indie Memphis Film Festival in 2018 and continues to exhibit his work in festivals, galleries, and museums internationally.