Starz Denver Film Festival Wednesday must-see: Brit Withey on The Revisionaries

Again this year, Starz Denver Film Festival artistic director Brit Withey is offering his must-see picks for each day of the fest — including many flicks that movie lovers might otherwise miss amid the flood of silver-screen goodies.

Here, he shares his pick for Wednesday, The Revisionaries.

The Revisionairies
Directed by Scott Thurman
4:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 7
Denver Pavilions

“This one is a doozy,” says Brit Withey of The Revisionaries, a documentary by Scott Thurman.

What’s the subject? “Every ten years, the Texas Board of Education gets to re-edit what goes in and what goes out of K-12 school textbooks for the entire country — and this film follows that process during a period of time when the head of the school board is a creationist. And there are others on the board at that time that share his mindset.

“There are these rather epic battles as they try to remove any reference to Darwin and insert references to the Earth only being 8,000 years old. And anytime Barack Obama’s name is referenced in a text book, they make sure to insert his middle name, ‘Hussein.’

“There’s only one guy, for the most part, who represents the opposite side — a professor from the University of Texas at Austin who’s the sane voice in this sea of insanity. But we spend a lot of time with the head of the board, who takes the film crew to his Sunday school classes, where he takes kids to a football field and has them set up orange cones to show the size of Noah’s ark, so they can see how all the animals would fit. He couldn’t be a more seemingly pleasant fellow. But it’s just absurd — a very memorable film.”

Director Scott Thurman is expected to be on hand for the screening.

Click here for more information, and visit Show and Tell throughout the festival for more of Brit’s picks.