By Gregory Crofton
“Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” has won the Best Music Documentary Feature award at the 55th edition of the Nashville Film Festival.
Directed by Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson, the film glows with a charming creative spirit that matches its subject, the indomitable Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams, a producer, singer, songwriter and musician who has released 26 albums and written or produced hundreds of tracks for other artists.
The film captures daily life at the Dogg’s home as his in-ground pool gets painted black and features an image best discovered by viewers. Hilarious stories abound, some animated, as you meet his live-in roommates Guitar Shorty and MoogStar. This is a doc for the ages and one that will help grow his well-deserved fanbase.
Dogg’s most recent album “Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St.” features Jenny Lewis and Margo Price. It was released by OH BOY Records, a label founded by the late great John Prine, who also appears in the doc working alongside Swamp Dogg on a re-recording of Prine’s classic tune “Sam Stone.”
Watch a trailer below.
“Sugarcane,” which examines a community’s discovery of unmarked graves on the grounds of an Indian residential school, took home the festival’s award for Best Documentary Feature. The school was run by Catholic Church of Canada and the graves were discovered in 2021, but sexual abuse and torture at this type of residential school had been established in 2015. The Canadian government used the schools to systematically segregate and damage indigenous communities. The Catholic church managed three-quarters of the 130 residential schools in country and more than 1,300 unmarked graves have been discovered to date.
Watch the trailer below.