6 degrees

I have to brag a little. My mother and sister have all the dramatic impulses in the family. (My brother and I woefully disappoint when it comes to anything artistic). Anyway, they were involved in a project a couple years ago with a film guy at KU called Confederate States of America (CSA). Lovely irony, by the way, having such strong, liberal women participate as such racist and ignorent characters! Essentially, CSA is one of those 'what if' kinds of mockumentaries, shoveling heaps of humor and absurdity on top of its point to make it somewhat palatable. The 'what if' involves political capitulation of the Union to the Confederacy in the mid 1860s (as opposed to the reverse, which is what actually happened, for all you peeps who fell asleep in history class).

After having difficulty lining up a distributor (PBS, after providing a few initial seed dollars, apparently balked when they were shown a draft script, hehe), the film garnered some attention at the 2004 Sundance, and IFC picked it up. Today, I noticed that AlterNet, a political site I check out every once in a while, had a rather detailed review of the film on their home page.

How cool is that!?! I don't even know if their scenes made the cutting for US distribution, but nonetheless, Eric, I expect you to use my mother whenever playing your dumb (I mean, um, way cool) 6 degrees of separation game.