22 October 2008 - 19:50“Buffalo Flows” to Premiere at New Northwest Arkansas Film Festival

UA alum Trey Marley and journalism professor Larry Foley (right) on site filming a new documentary about the Buffalo River.

A new documentary by Larry Foley, professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas, will make its premiere at the inaugural Northwest Arkansas Documentary Film Festival, Nov. 14-16 in the J.B. Hunt Center on the University of Arkansas campus. The Buffalo Flows, narrated by Academy Award-winner Ray McKinnon, examines the historical fight to save the Buffalo and the river’s heritage today. The film will be screened at 7 p.m. Nov. 14.

The festival week kicks off with a Producers Premiere Party, Nov. 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the Pratt Place Barn, 2231 West Markham, Fayetteville. Cocktails, dinner and music by Mo’ Brothers will precede highlights from festival film selections. Senator David H. Pryor will follow with a keynote address. This unique educational and cultural experience is an outgrowth of the The Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute’s mission to advance the documentary genre as an art form throughout the state and nation. In the 17 years since its inception, the HSDFI festival has grown into an internationally acclaimed year-round Institute that attracts over 30,000 attendees and filmmakers.

Proceeds from this festival and related events will support HSDFI in the establishment of an annual documentary film festival in Northwest Arkansas. For further information on the festival, sponsorships and tickets to all events, contact Julie Preddy (479)442-2423, or by email at hsdfinwa@aol.com. For information on HSDFI, visit www.hsdfi.org.

About The Buffalo Flows:

The Buffalo River is born in the Ozark Mountains, springing from the hills and into rock framed valleys carved by weather and ageless time. It is our first national river—a place folks fought to preserve. Save the Buffalo was the cry. Don’t let her be drowned by her own waters! “They won that battle, and federal protection. And today there is a future that mirrors the past, because the Buffalo flows.”

The Buffalo Flows is a one-hour documentary film written and produced by two-time Emmy award winning filmmaker Larry Foley, professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas. The film is narrated by Academy Award winner Ray McKinnon, an actor and film director who calls Little Rock home. Trey Marley of Fayetteville does a masterful job of capturing the river’s magnificent beauty over four seasons, while Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Dale Carpenter, also a professor at the U of A, lends his talent as the film’s editor.

“This story is like the old song, ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain.’ There’s not just one thing that makes the Buffalo so special—so unique,” said Foley. “When the ‘Battle for the Buffalo’ was won, protecting the river from being dammed, we saved a national, natural treasure.”

“People know of the river as a canoe stream, and it’s one of the best. But the Buffalo is so much more, and the film captures exactly what it is we protected. This story is about the bluffs and the trees, the flowers and the birds and the giant elk. It’s about hiking and floating and camping and fishing. And it’s also about the people who make their home in Buffalo River country year round, and have for generations,” Foley said.

Folk singer Jimmy Driftwood called the Buffalo River, “Arkansas’ gift to the nation-America’s gift to the world.”

“She is fashioned by young Mother Nature and sculpted by Old Father Time,” wrote Driftwood. “A painting that hangs on a mountain, glimmering there in the sun, to show that the people have won.”

Funding was provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History.