Moving Midway (2008)

The whole idea of foundation — as it applies to family, history, and an actual, stately American house — receives a thoughtful inspection in Moving Midway, the graceful nonfiction film from Godfrey Cheshire, a New York-based film critic with North Carolina roots. He documents the lifting, loading, and moving of Midway, an ancestral family plantation, out of the path of encroaching commercial Raleigh sprawl. With his deep cinematic knowledge and vivid visual references, Cheshire analyzes the romantic notion of ''the plantation'' and offers a compassionate meditation on Southern race relations. Plus, he had the small-world luck in finding Dr. Robert Hinton, a charismatic NYU professor and grandson of a Midway slave. A-