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What does it mean to truly live on? For folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe, the answer came through her prolific creative works. Born in 1900 in Atlanta at the dawn of a new century, Rowe spent her life immersed in art despite facing the difficulties of poverty and segregation in the Jim Crow-era South. She crafted fanciful dolls, exuberant paintings bursting with color and spirit, and bizarre sculptures crafted from chewed gum. But recognition largely eluded Rowe during her lifetime.

All of that changed due to the efforts of one determined woman, Judith Alexander. The daughter of a wealthy Atlanta attorney, Alexander became captivated by Rowe’s singular vision after discovering her eccentric “playhouse” filled with whimsical creations. As Rowe’s friend and champion, Alexander helped bring the self-taught artist’s brilliance to light through exhibitions in New York and beyond. At last, Rowe’s vibrant works received the acclaim they deserved.

Rowe escaped destitution through art in 20th century Atlanta in this busy but intriguing story of an unsung artist who made beauty from the mundane

This winning overview of the life of self-taught black artist Nellie Mae Rowe and her white patron, Judith Alexander, also doubles up as a social history of 20th-century Atlanta, Georgia. It throws up a host of fascinating interconnections, the immediate significance and relevancy of which to Rowe’s actual work is sometimes a bit loose. But with directors Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell getting their own hands messy on the creative front, this frieze of poverty, segregation and artistic self-rescue borrows a good deal of the persuasiveness and energy of its central figure.

Born in 1900 to a former-slave father and a seamstress mother, Rowe escaped destitution through art. She made handcrafted dolls in imitation of the characters around her; vibrant drawings that whirled real life...

Exclusive: Boutique distributor Juno Films has picked up North American and UK rights to This World is Not My Own, a documentary portrait of the folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe from filmmakers Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell, which premiered earlier this year at SXSW. The award-winner will be released in theaters in the summer of 2024.

Beginning with her birthday on July 4, 1900, Rowe’s life spanned the 20th century. For most of it, she made art in obscurity, propelled by a force she viewed as a God-given gift. As the daughter of a sharecropper and former slave, Rowe made art from whatever she could find. As an adult, she transformed her home into her “Playhouse,” an imaginative oasis filled with vibrant drawings, handmade sculptures and dolls, and collected objects. Six years before her death, a wealthy gallerist, Judith Alexander, “discovered” and introduced her work to the art world.

Over four acts,...

Like Louis Armstrong, Nellie Mae Rowe claimed July 4, 1900, as the day she was born. If definitive records could be found in either case, they might indicate a less symbolic date. But for Black Americans born into poverty in the Jim Crow South, as Armstrong and Rowe were, that symbolism — Independence Day, the dawn of the century — is significant. Rowe took her independence seriously, as the captivating film portrait This World Is Not My Own makes vibrantly clear. After years of farm work and many more years as a domestic servant, the twice-widowed Georgian decided, in the powerful words of one of her great-great-nieces, “to design my life the way that I want it while I’m on this journey passing through.”

Whether you call her a folk artist, an outsider artist or simply self-taught, Rowe devoted herself with joy to her paintings, drawings and chewing gum sculptures (using gum she’d chomped herself,...

Stars: Victoria Hopkins, Angela Zahra, Melissa Advani, Judith Alexander, Jody Baldwin, Bill Fellows, Kristian James, Holly Newton | Written and Directed by Richard Johnstone

Usually it wouldn’t bode well for a film when a) it has a generic title like Vampires; and b) when you discover it’s actual title is Bloodless, the very opposite of what you want from a vampire movie… Give me flesh-tearing vampires ripping people apart anyday thanks! But, all prejudices aside, I was still willing to give this British scary movie a shot – mainly in part to one of the films stars, Victoria Hopkins, and its producer, Steve O’Brien. Both names whom you probably aren’t that familiar with but both of whom worked on Zombie Women of Satan. A film who – even to this day – it seems like I’m the only fan of (that was certainly the case after its screening at Frightfest in 2009).

Vampires,...