Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival | AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND

Emmy Award-winning director Ilana Trachtman’s invigorating, nuanced documentary recalls a small yet crucial chapter in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1960, five students from Howard University perched defiantly on a merry-go-round in Maryland’s Glen Echo Amusement Park, which had been segregated since the turn of the 20th century, and refused to leave. As their sit-in gained national attention, the Black students were joined in their resistance by members of Bannockburn, a mostly Jewish housing community across the street. Borrowing its title from a Langston Hughes poem, AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND features a voice-over cast that includes Mandy Patinkin, Jeffrey Wright, and Dominique Thorne, among others. Inspired by her own family history, Trachtman -- whose father was a Jewish labor organizer -- has created an uplifting work of historical excavation that reminds viewers of the importance of collaboration and humility in the face of injustice.