“…Soros Documentary Fund “South” initially began as a “meditation on the American South” inspired by the filmmaker’s love for the work of writers William Faulkner and James Baldwin. The direction of the film quickly shifted after the racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas in June 1998; a black man who was killed by three white men who chained him to their truck and dragged him three miles through predominantly black parts of the county until one of his arms came off and he was decapitated. …”