Independent Lens, My Omaha
PBS Western Reserve (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):
Sunday, Oct. 11, at 11 PM
Fusion (WNEO 45.2 / WEAO 49.2):
Monday, Oct. 5, at 10 PM
Saturday, Oct. 10, at noon
An intimate portrait of family, race and the uneasy search for truth inside modern America, Filmmaker Nick Beaulieu confronts his hometown’s racial history and his own family divide while documenting Omaha’s racial justice movement.
Set in Omaha, Nebraska, where the legacies of Malcolm X, racial segregation and political division still shape everyday life, “My Omaha” begins in 2016, as the emergence of Donald Trump intensifies political and racial divisions across the United States. Returning home after journalism school, Beaulieu turned his camera toward Omaha, where he grew up in its predominantly white suburbs but had never fully understood the lived realities of the historically Black neighborhoods of North Omaha.
Seeking to better understand the forces separating these communities, Beaulieu meets activist Leo Louis II, a fiercely independent organizer whose work places him at the center of Omaha’s racial justice movement. Through Louis, Beaulieu encounters a side of his hometown he had never fully seen: a community confronting generations of disinvestment and discrimination while fighting to preserve its history, protect itself, and build a more equitable future.
At the same time, Beaulieu begins filming a series of increasingly difficult conversations with his father Randy, a staunch Trump supporter. When Randy is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, their political disagreements take on a new urgency, forcing father and son to confront the emotional distance between them before time runs out.
As Omaha faces protests, political unrest and the aftermath of a polarizing death connected to the movement, Beaulieu finds himself caught between a personal awakening, the realities Louis has spent his life navigating and the desire to remain connected to a father whose worldview he increasingly struggles to understand.
