"Saving Willie Mae's Scotch House" Earns Nationwide Television Distribution

The University of Mississippi’s Media and Documentary Projects Center is proud to announce that it’s feature-length documentary film “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” has earned nationwide television distribution.

Produced, directed, and edited by Joe York, the film chronicles the 18-month effort to rebuild Willie Mae Seaton’s famed Scotch House Restaurant, a New Orleans culinary landmark destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Among those featured in the film are John T Edge and Mary Beth Lasseter of the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) — an affiliate of the University of Mississippi housed at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture –and Chef John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi.

Thanks to the National Educational Television Association (NETA) the film has been made available to over 100 public television stations in over 40 states. To date, the film has aired in California, Georgia, Ohio, Oregon, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Louisiana. With each station allowed to air the film 4 times over 3 years, that list is sure to grow in the coming months.

Click here to watch the film in its entirety.

Saving Willie Mae's Scotch House


Before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans people came from all around to eat at Willie Mae Seaton’s famed Scotch House Restaurant. After the storm, they came back to help rebuild the ruined culinary landmark. This documentary traces their efforts seeing the tiny restaurant as an analog for the tremendous difficulties and small victories that play out everyday in post-Katrina New Orleans. (2007)

Marsaw


Martin Sawyer tended bar in the French Quarter for over 50 years. As a child he witnessed the flood of 1927 and as an octagenarian he fled his native New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina took aim. In this short profile, Mr. Sawyer talks about his time behind the bar and his memories of the Cresenct City. (2006)