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Experience curated screenings from the Library's 16mm film collection and participate in guided discussions about film, history, and archives with local filmmaker Ty Flowers. He will screen and discuss his 2015 documentary, "Time Simply Passes." For more information, please contact the library at 305-375-5572 or specialcollections@mdpls.org. Ages 12 yrs.+
About Time Simply Passes
Time Simply Passes is a documentary film about James Joseph Richardson, an African-American citrus picker in Arcadia, Florida who was wrongfully convicted of the poisoning deaths of his seven children in 1968. He was sentenced to death and spent 21 years in prison until he was released in 1989 when his conviction was finally overturned following a series of miraculous interventions from the press, the public, and various political and legal communities within Florida.
Once the fanfare subsided, he found himself penniless and alone in an unfamiliar world, given no help from the State that destroyed his life while the true killer of his children stayed free. For the past 26 years, he has faithfully attempted in vain to receive recompense from the State of Florida, until new legislation looks like it could finally come to his rescue, and he returns to Florida hoping to finally attain true freedom. This is his story.
It's a film about race, about Florida, about the evolution of small-town justice, about forgotten
moments in history, about systemic corruption within the criminal justice system and the concept of restorative compensatory justice.
The film uses decades of archival footage, photographs, and documents to accurately and completely tell a story more than 50 years in the making. This film represents a multi-generational effort to diagram this story from beginning to end, in the hopes that we can one day learn how to prevent it from ever happening again.
About the Director
Ty Flowers is a documentary filmmaker based in South Florida, whose work focuses on the resurrection of forgotten histories and the exploration of complex systemic injustices. His work has been exhibited at or been featured in Spin Magazine, Pitchfork, Stereogum, NPR, Noisey, Anthology Film Archives, and New York Live Arts. He is a recipient of the Ideastap Wrap-up Fund, an in-kind recipient of the Miami Film Development Grant, and a finalist for a Borscht 0 Commission. His first Feature documentary film Time Simply Passes received numerous awards including the Audience Award at Tallgrass Film Festival and the Golden Camel Award for Best Director at Jaipur International Film Festival, and was described by FilmThreat as “A lesson we shouldn’t forget, and a film whose timing couldn’t be better.” It was acquired for distribution in 2018 and is currently streaming throughout the world via Amazon, iTunes, and other digital platforms.
About the Division of Special Collections & Archives
Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Division of Special Collections & Archives holds rare and irreplaceable historical documents for the benefit of the public and scholarly community. They oversee the Helen Muir Florida Collection, 16mm Film Collection, Cuban Collection of Rare Books & Ephemera, Genealogy Collection, Vasari Project, and rare & antiquarian books from as early as the 17th century. The Division's primary goal is to provide the public with the contents of the vault at their request. Its collections include rare books, original manuscripts, over 18,000 photographs, prints, artifacts, audiovisual resources, and electronic media.
About the Film Collection
The 16mm film collection has been part of the Library's holdings for over 55 years. Its first films were part of the City of Miami’s public library and began in the 1960s before there was a county library. When MDPLS was formed, the County supplemented its local funding for films with Federal LSCA grants (Library Services and Construction Act). Apart from leased feature films, all films were purchased for free exhibition for the life of the print. Subjects within the collection include experimental/avant-garde art films, non-narrated films, children’s films, Black history, Floridiana, and local history. Today, there are over 4,000 films within the collection.
AGE GROUP: | Young Adult (12-18) | Adult (19+) |
EVENT TYPE: | Special Event | Special Collections | Movies | In-Person | History |
| Mon, Mar 30 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Tue, Mar 31 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Wed, Apr 01 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Thu, Apr 02 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Fri, Apr 03 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Sat, Apr 04 | 9:30AM to 6:00PM |
| Sun, Apr 05 | Closed |
