Saturday, October 17 – 4:00pm

The Lorraine

Tickets

Documentary • USA • 2026
84 Minutes

Synopsis: In the heart of Memphis, Walter and Loree Bailey’s Lorraine Motel was both a thriving hub of Black entrepreneurship and a destination for the greatest musicians of the 20th century—a place where Civil Rights demonstrations were planned, musical hits were written, and Black and white artists created history together. A rare, black-owned establishment, The Lorraine served as a safe haven and sanctuary for Black travelers during the Jim Crow era. Then, on April 4, 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. outside Room 306 cleaved that history in two, and the world forgot everything else.

Urgent yet deeply joyful, THE LORRAINE is both a reckoning with the Civil Rights Movement’s unfinished legacy and a celebration of Black excellence and resilience. Renowned documentarian Sam Pollard uses archival footage and music along with the voices of those who lived it to vividly revive what was lost. The film ultimately becomes a story of reclamation: of people, space, history, and identity. Of transforming trauma into light.

THE LORRAINE reminds us that history is never as neatly resolved as we’re taught to believe, and that the fight for justice is still very much evolving.

Director: Sam Pollard
Producers: Dan Braun, Joe Wemple, Ben Braun
Executive Producers: Alvin Hall, Joe Wemple, Robert Gordon, Rick Brookwell, Peter Kenney, Josh Braun, Julekya Lantigua, Thomas Campbell Jackson, Penny B. Jackson, Sheldon Stone
Cinematographer: Henry Adebonojo
Editor: R.A. Fedde, Masaya Hirose
Composer: Christopher North

Festivals: Tribeca