Final SummerDocs Screening: ‘The Overnighters’ on August 29

This 2014 SummerDocs season has been one to remember. It’s hard to believe it’s August already, and we only have one screening left: on Friday, August 29, join us at Guild Hall of East Hampton for The Overnighters, directed by Jesse Moss, who will join series host Alec Baldwin after the screening. 

“After another year in which a SummerDocs selection has gone on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary (Twenty Feet From Stardom), we are excited to bring what we see as some of the most exciting voices in documentary films to the Hamptons,” says Artistic Director David Nugent.

The Overnighters explores the ramifications of the hydraulic fracturing boom in Williston, North Dakota. As the town recoils from the burdens of an unwanted population boom, one unique pastor struggles to live by the Christian tenet of “love thy neighbor.”

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THE OVERNIGHTERS

Directed by Jesse Moss
August 29 | 7:30 pm
Tickets

In the tiny town of Williston, North Dakota tens of thousands of unemployed hopefuls show up with dreams of honest work and a big paycheck when hydraulic fracturing in that region unlocks a vast oil field in the nearby Bakken shale. Upon arrival, however, busloads of newcomers step into the sad reality of slim work prospects and nowhere to sleep – the town lacks the infrastructure to house even those who do find gainful employment. Over at Concordia Lutheran Church, Pastor Jay Reinke is Hell-bent on delivering the migrants some dignity. Night after night he converts his church into a makeshift dorm and counseling center, opening the church’s doors to allow the “Overnighters” – as he calls them – to stay for a night, a week or sometimes even longer, sleeping on the floor, in the pews, and in their cars in the Church parking lot.

A modern-day “Grapes of Wrath,” The Overnighters engages and dramatizes a set of universal societal and economic themes: the promise and limits of re-invention, redemption and compassion, as well as the tension between the moral imperative to “love they neighbor” and the practice of one small community when confronted by a surging river of desperate, job-seeking strangers. The film premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Intuitive Filmmaking. The film will be released theatrically by Drafthouse Films in Fall 2014.


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The 2014 Summer Docs Audience Award is sponsored by Candescent Films.


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Support for the SummerDocs series is also generously provided by Beach Magazine.