by Associated Press
The work of two University of Florida documentary students beat out 150 other films to receive a coveted place in the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library. Miss Lil’s Camp, the story of a Georgia camp director who taught white girls in the Jim Crow South that segregation was wrong, won a student competition to be screened along with award winning films about former President Clinton and the issues he faced. The Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, one of the select screeners for Oscar-nominated documentaries each year, selected Miss Lil’s Camp.
The film was made by University of Florida Film Institute students Suzanne Niedland and Anberin Pasha. They interviewed three women who attended Lillian Smith’s exclusive girls camp in Clayton, GA, and wove in rare archival footage of the camp to tell Smith’s story. Niedland said Smith was “ahead of her time” in the way she challenged young women of that era “to question, rather than accept the world they lived in.” She said Clinton represents that same ability of individuals to overcome far-reaching injustice.
"Lillian Smith and President Clinton, more so than any other president, had empathy, support and concern for minorities and particularly the black community,” Niedland said. “President Clinton came from humble beginnings and identified closely with those that suffered from discrimination.”
Niedland and Pasha made Miss Lil’s Camp for a graduate thesis project. They will attend the Nov. 16 screening at the main library in Little Rock. The Clinton Library opens a few blocks away two days later with a gala for Clinton, international dignitaries and an anticipated 30,000 guests.
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