Acclaimed film The Holly gets special screening at Western

Come see The Holly, one of the most widely acclaimed documentaries of the year, at a special screening of the film in Western Colorado University’s Taylor Hall Auditorium on Wednesday, November 15, at 7 p.m. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with the film’s main subject, activist Terrance Roberts, along with award-winning journalist and filmmaker Julian Rubinstein, who is a visiting filmmaker at Western. 

The Gunnison library will be hosting Rubinstein for an author talk at 6 p.m. on Monday, November 13 at 1 Quartz Street in Gunnison. 

The Holly is based on Rubinstein’s book, The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood, which tells the story of Terrance Roberts, a former gang leader who appears to have escaped his past. He is 10 years from his days in prison and living in a historic Denver community, where he’s an activist whose work won him awards and made him the face of a high-profile redevelopment of one of Denver’s civil rights landmarks, Holly Square. 

But, as the redevelopment is coming to fruition, Roberts shocks the city by shooting a young gang member—at his own peace rally. The Holly was the winner of the 2022 Colorado Book Award and the 2022 High Plains Book Award and was included on The New York Times Editors’ Choice list.

The film was accepted into the competition for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, won the Audience Choice Award at Mountainfilm 2022, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Santa Fe International Film Festival, won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the Denver Film Festival and was selected to show at the International Documentary Association’s FallDocs series, which is “a curated collection of the most acclaimed documentary films of the year.”

Free copies of The Holly will be available at the Gunnison County Public Library in Gunnison and the Old Rock Library in Crested Butte beginning on Wednesday, October 25.  

This is a great opportunity to read a book, discuss it with the author and the community and then enjoy a documentary based on the book.