FILM REVIEWS
We’re proud of the fantastic reviews of A Binding Truth by critics at Film Threat, InSession, Cinemacy, GH Movie Freak, Film Obsessive, Flixchatter Film Blog, and more. Be sure also to check out our great Tomatometer reading 100% on Rotten Tomatoes!
‘A Binding Truth’ Reveals Shared History Amid Legacy of Slavery
by Kirk Boxleitner | 09.26.24
For my final weekly review prior to this year’s Port Townsend Film Festival, I’m taking on a powerful film to be showcased during the 25th annual PTFF this weekend.
Filmmaker Louise Woehrle won the PTFF Best Feature Documentary Audience Award for 2019, and she’s returning this year with her latest documentary, “A Binding Truth,” which scored a 100% “fresh” rating among film critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
While PBS is planning to broadcast a one-hour version of the film in February 2025 for Black History Month, it’s worth catching the full hour-and-a-half cut. More >
MOVIE REVIEW: A BINDING TRUTH’ DIGS DEEPER THAN MOST
by Will Bjarnar | 04.05.2024
If there was one thing you could always count on when it came to ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series, it was an acute sense of nostalgia. Most of the stories on which each film focused were relatively well-known quantities, from Jordan Rides the Bus — a look back at Michael Jordan’s short-lived baseball career and the dramatics that preceded it — to The Fab Five — a reexamination of the University of Michigan’s 1991 basketball recruiting class, which featured Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and Juwan Howard. Occasionally, these documentaries dove beneath the surface of old game footage; episodes like Unguarded, the story of Chris Herren, a former basketball prodigy whose career was derailed by drug and alcohol abuse, uncovered lesser-known stories about athletes and teams we may have heard from had their journeys unfolded differently.
But those aforementioned undertones of nostalgia and a keen desire to redeliver sports fans to the glory days were what really drove the Worldwide Leader’s success when it came to “30 for 30”. That’s just a small part of what makes a documentary like Louise Woehrle’s A Binding Truth so refreshing: As by-the-numbers as it is in format, it tells a sports story that is truly unknown, but only in a precursory sense. After an introduction to its main players through that lens, it uncovers something deeper and wholly heartbreaking, and places an emphasis on how the undisclosed darkness of the past can be atoned for in the future. More >
A Binding Truth
By Michael Talbot-Haynes | 10.11.23
A trip back to yesterday reveals hidden pathways deep into darkness in director Louise Woehrle’s profound documentary feature A Binding Truth. It begins as a sports profile of Jimmy Lee Kirkpatrick, who at one point was a football legend in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the early 60s, he was the star of the Second Ward High School, which was all black due to segregation. Kirkpatrick took a historic opportunity to transfer to the all-white Myers Park and lead their team to victory after victory. While at the school, a white classmate named De Kirkpatrick would say hi as they had the same last name…. More >
'A Binding Truth' Uncovers a Complicated Familial History
By Morgan Rojas | 10.9.23
Two former high school classmates, one black and one white, explore a complicated familial history in director Louise Woehrle’s incredible documentary, A Binding Truth. What initially started out as a sports biopic about the regional football superstar Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick gracefully morphs into something far more affecting. Making its Midwest Premiere at the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis next week, A Binding Truth turns a sports story into a larger civil rights story, ultimately crafting a universal story of America…. More >
Documentary Review:
“A Binding Truth” – Friendship, Slavery’s Legacy and Uncomfortable Pasts.
By Tony Asankomah | 10.11.23
“A Binding Truth” is a poignant documentary that transcends the boundaries of time and memory to explore the deep and emotional connections between two high school classmates, Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and Hugh “De” Kirkpatrick. The film delves into their intertwined histories, unveiling the profound impact of America’s dark legacy of slavery on their families, and by extension, on themselves…. More >
TCFF2023: Decades Later, Two Men Discover and Embrace a Binding Truth
By J. Paul Johnson | 10.29.23
For his senior year of high school, all-State running back Jimmie transferred to the nearly all-white Myers Park High School, where he became the school’s first Black football star and later the reluctant subject of a civil rights case. Jimmie’s presence there was an inspiration to many, including a fellow student there named De, a bright young white boy who wrote about the case in his college essay application… More >
TCFF 2023 Documentary Review: A BINDING TRUTH (2023)
By Ruth Maramis | 10.27.23
A Binding Truth is a story about two people who share the same last name – one black, one white – both from Charlotte, North Carolina in Mecklenburg County. When Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and Hugh “De” Kirkpatrick encountered each other as high school classmates in 1965, neither thought much of anything about their shared name, little did they know that they shared an unexpected connection that would change their lives forever…. More >
A Binding Truth (Woehrle, 2023)
By Ken Morefield | 11.05.23
It’s not so much that those who forget the past repeat it; it’s that those who never foreground the past forget what they already know.
In America, we know — or claim that we do — that slavery has cast a lengthy shadow over our history, with repercussions that reverberate to this day. Yet too often we claim in the present that slavery is ancient history, a relic of our past that has no tangible impact on the ways we live in the present moment....
A Binding Truth disabuses us of that notion. More >
A Binding Truth (2023)
by Dallas King | 11.16.23
"Full marks goes to the editing process for enmeshing live images, photos, voices, and music. Credit is also due to the well-paced and engaging direction by accomplished nonfiction filmmaker Louise Woehrle. Plus, the background music is varied and effective without being obtrusive. Here is an indie-release worthy of a place in the U.S. government’s national archives and mandatory-viewing globally." More >
Review of A Binding Truth | The brutal truth about how slaves and their owners are profoundly bound
by ReviewRon | 11.16.23
"Slavery may have ended, but the scar tissue that it left in the country has never truly healed. A Binding Truth is a confronting and eye-opening film that can help further the discussion in wider America." More >
