Step aside, parking lot attendants and game-playing teachers. A new local is at the center of a documentary gaining national attention.
Preacher is the story of Bishop William Nowell of New Covenant Church here in town, at the corner of Grady and Preston. The film grew out of a 2007 C-VILLE story by Jayson Whitehead, who then pitched Nowell as a subject to friend and filmmaker named Daniel Kraus. Kraus, a Chicago filmmaker, is in the process of assembling a body of work called "Work," documentaries about people at their jobs.
The A.V. Club gushed in an A- review, before the film premiered on the Documentary Channel last month. "Throughout," said the review, "Preacher gets how even something as purposeful as prayer has its own jargon and rituals. Like enforcing the law, and making music, and inspiring young intellects, the act of nourishing souls requires preparation, equipment, repetition, and a sense of sustaining righteousness."
If you missed the Documentary Channel premiere, you can see it at the Virginia Film Festival on Sunday, November 6. Details are here.
A scene from Preacher.