You Belong to Me

YOU BELONG TO ME Saturday, December 6, 2014, 5:35PM-7:15PM Feature film - Click here to purchase tickets!

Director: John Cork Category: Documentary Feature Runtime: 88 minutes Place of Origin: Treasure Island, Florida Shooting Locations: Live Oak, Florida; Ybor City, Florida; Bradenton, Florida; Gainesville, Florida (at the University of Florida)

Synopsis: (Documentary) " August 3, 1952. Live Oak, Florida 11:34 am. Ruby McCollum, age 42, shoots State Senator-elect, Dr. C. L. Adams, firing her .32-caliber revolver four times, before going home and warming a bottle of milk for her baby daughter. What began as a bizarre murder case quickly turned a bright light on the rotting underbelly of the old South. Ruby McCollum was the wealthiest black woman in Suwannee County, Florida. Her husband, Sam, ran the local Bolita numbers racket, owned several farms and sat on the Board of Florida's largest black life insurance company. They were church going, upstanding members of the community. Their eldest son had been accepted to UCLA. Murdering the most powerful white man in town over a doctor's bill would seem the least likely crime she might commit. Was Ruby insane, or was the killing of Dr. Adams the last sane act of a woman whose wealth and status could not protect her from the blind indifference and humiliations of the Jim Crow South? The Judge in her case refused to allow her to be interviewed by reporters, including the famed writers Zora Neale Hurston and William Bradford Huie. Her testimony proved so explosive, the local paper refused to print it. Her case haunted jurors and prosecutors for decades. You Belong To Me, explores and rips the veil off hidden practices, exposing the truth of what it meant to be an African American in the Jim Crow South and the long road to healing.

Cast: Re-enactment actors: Denise Durette, John Sherman

Crew: Producers: Hilary Saltzman, Jude Hagin; Executive Producer: Kitty Potapow; Greg Gallegos, Composer; Bradley Grossman, Editor; John Cork, Cinematographer

Production Background & Fun Facts: Ruby McCollum changed history by putting white men on notice that they could not longer 'take' black women sexually or force them to bear their children.

Festivals & Accolades: LaFemme Film Festival; accepted to Toronto Black Film Festival;

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