SCENE IN VIRGINIA SERIES - FINDING EDNA LEWIS (2025)

All Audiences

2025 (US)

56 minutes

*In partnership with local nonprofit Belltower Pictures. This will be the second screening of the Scene in Virginia series. Scene in Virginia is a recurring film series that celebrates Virginia filmmakers and stories deeply connected to the Commonwealth. Each event will be a cultural experience for the audience. Following each movie, the film's actors and moviemakers will engage in a live Q&A session hosted by Belltower President, Craig Martin, who is also the six-year host of PBSs THE GOOD ROAD. Audiences will experience a deeper movie experience with this format as it is designed to bring the Richmond community together.Each screening will be held at The Byrd Theatre at 7pm on the 2nd Monday of each month, except for October and November.

**There will be NO performance on the Mighty WurliTzer before the film.

Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren are Emmy-winning, married documentary filmmakers working at the intersection of history and social justice. Their company, Field Studio, has been based in Richmond, Virginia, since 2014. They have since produced three feature-length films, two seasons of a public television series, and several short films. Their documentary HOW THE MONUMENTS CAME DOWN was named the best historical documentary of 2021 by the American Historical Association. Their film FINDING EDNA LEWIS was nominated for a 2026 James Beard Award.

Join Deb Freeman to discover the life and legacy of Edna Lewis, the Virginia-born Black chef who introduced many Americans to seasonal cooking, one dish at a time.

From Freetown, Virginia, to New York City, Edna Lewis carved a remarkable path. She introduced many Americans to seasonal cooking, Southern cooking—the cooking of the Black community in rural Virginia that raised her. Yet even though her life included fame and acclaim, she is not a household name. In FINDING EDNA LEWIS, Deb Freeman travels to the places where Miss Lewis made her mark, and where her legacy endures. Deb interviews—and cooks!—with chefs, farmers, cookbook writers, and family members whose approach to food was profoundly shaped by Miss Lewis. Decades before culture celebrated chefs as celebrities, and often behind-the-scenes as a Black woman working in food, Miss Lewis appears in little archival footage. But Deb discovers Miss Lewis again and again, cooking dishes from her repertoire and talking to those who knew her and her food best. She finds not only an enigmatic chef, but also an essential American personality—a champion of seasonal, local, farm-to-table cooking whose life reveals deep truths about the tables we set.

Producers: Deb Freeman (Executive Producer), Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren

Directors: Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1042798854/e6a2ecb755?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

NOTE: No refunds at any time