The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, in collaboration with the Vermont International Film Festival, presents two great musical documentaries — Little Richard: I Am Everything and Dusty & Stones — as part of MNFF’s 2023 tour of the state. Attendees of both films are invited to a reception in the Main Street Landing Film House Lobby from 5:30 – 7:00 pm.
Little Richard: I Am Everything tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything.
“It’s cool and so fun.” – NPR