Lillie & Leander: A Legacy of Violence

Lillie & Leander: A Legacy of Violence

Discovery
Feature | 84 MINUTES | English
Documentary

Some family secrets are bigger than others. When Alice Brewton Hurwitz decides to look into the turn-of-the-century murder of her great-great Aunt Lillie, all she knows is that Lillie was brutally assaulted and killed in 1908. She quickly learns that the accused assailant was an African-American man named Leander Shaw, who was lynched by an angry mob in the town square following his arrest. While interviewing an elderly relative about Lillie's murder, Alice learns that her ancestors were so incensed by the crime that they may have perpetrated years of revenge in the form of hundreds of racially charged murders. Despite pressure from her family and members of the local community, Alice decides that she cannot stay silent and begins a search for answers-and, hopefully, justice. As she investigates clues that will help her unravel this gruesome family secret, she eventually finds herself in the middle of an Assistant State Attorney's search for human remains. Alice's actions ignite a maelstrom of controversy in her small hometown, whose history has been carefully painted and somewhat romanticized to appeal to modern-day tourists. Alice's emotional journey is adeptly captured by filmmaker Jeffrey Morgan in his feature directorial debut. Morgan presents a portrait of a community struggling to reconcile a violently racist past that most wish would stay buried. The result is Lillie & Leander: A Legacy of Violence, an important and urgent story buried in the fabric of our cultural landscape. Copresented with Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.


Cast & Credits

Born in California and raised in Alaska, filmmaker Jeffrey Morgan made 15 short movies by the time he finished high school.  Through the financial help of his Native American tribe, the Fallon Paiute of northern Nevada, Morgan graduated in 1999 from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU with a major in film and television production.  His directing professor once described his work as, “drama with a twist,” and film critic James Bowman noticed Morgan’s “considerable flair for handling his actors.”  In 2002, he was an NYU Richard Vague film production fund finalist, a Project Greenlight 2 top 250 director, and a writer in the top 10% of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowships.  In 2003 he directed the short film “Eclipsed” which earned him a spot as one of the top 250 directors in Project Greenlight 3.  He worked four years as an editor at Deutsch Advertising in New York before joining the company’s broadcast production department as an associate producer and in-house director.  Morgan first became involved with “Lillie & Leander” in the summer of 2002.

Co-Producer
Jeffrey Morgan
Cinematographer
Jeffrey Morgan, Toshiro Yamaguchi, Robert Patrick
Associate Producer
Kristin Wernicke
Producer
Alice Brewton Hurwitz
Director
Jeffrey Morgan

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