Date and Time
- Tue, May 20, 2025 - Thu, May 29, 2025
Details
Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round, the award-winning documentary chronicling a pivotal yet forgotten Civil Rights battle at Glen Echo Amusement Park has returned to the very region where history was made 65 years ago.
Now a surprise DMV sensation, the film ranked as the 6th highest-grossing per screen film nationwide during its opening weekend at the Avalon and has expanded to three additional theaters due to overwhelming demand. Screening at 30 festivals nationwide, Ain’t No Back is now home, and and for wildly diverse groups, it’s the film to see in the DMV for an infusion of hope, lost history, and inspiration for grassroots mobilization.
SYNOPSIS
When five Howard University students sat on a segregated Maryland carousel in 1960, their arrests made headlines. When the Jewish community near Glen Echo Amusement Park joined the protest, a history-making interracial demonstration was born. The pickets attracted Nazis, Congressman, and a press avalanche. Picketing together led to partying together, union organizers mentored student activists, and ten 1961 Freedom Riders emerged, including Stokely
Carmichael. With never-before seen footage, and immersive storytelling by Emmy-award winning director Ilana Trachtman, four living protesters rescue this untold story, revealing the price, and the power, of heeding the impulse to activism.
STAR-POWERED VOICES
Featuring Jeffrey Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Bob Balaban, Lee Grant, Peter Gallagher, Dominique
Thorne, Alysia Reiner, and Tracie Thoms.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
• The Avalon Theatre (DC): Through May 29
• Greenbelt Cinema (MD): Through May 15
• AFI Silver Spring (MD): Through May 29
• Cinema Arts (Fairfax, VA): Starting May 16
About Director Ilana Trachtman: Emmy award-winning filmmaker with three decades of experience creating documentaries for PBS, HBO Family, ABC-TV, Showtime, Lifetime, Discovery, A&E, and the Sundance Channel. Previous acclaimed work includes Praying with Lior, Mariachi High, and Black in Latin America with Henry Louis Gates.
About the Film: 90 minutes | Documentary | United States | 2024 | English
Three-minute teaser and more information available at aintnoback.com
