Experiencing Interruptions?

Cash Crop

In Southern Virginia, Black farmers like Cecil Taylor balance their interests in honoring their tradition of tobacco farming against the onset of solar energy farms exploding across the region.
Through Cecil, the film explores one rural county’s shifting economic interests and his own efforts to steward the community, including Black landowners, through changing times.

  • Lorenzo Dickerson
    Director
  • Nick Price
    Producer
    Reel South
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes 32 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 6, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Hot Springs Film Festival
Distribution Information
  • PBS
Director Biography - Lorenzo Dickerson

Lorenzo Dickerson is a filmmaker/ photographer and founder of Maupintown Media with documentary films that focus on sharing stories of African-American history and culture in Virginia. Lorenzo’s films have been shown in various film festivals, broadcast on PBS, and used as a teaching tool in K-12 and college classrooms throughout the country. His own Maupintown Film Festival is held annually at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. A native of Charlottesville/Albemarle, Lorenzo earned a BBA in business management and MBA in marketing from Strayer University and got started as a filmmaker sharing the stories of his own family, including being enslaved at Castle Hill plantation, their participation in the Great Migration, attending an historic Rosenwald School, and desegregating Albemarle County Public Schools.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I grew up sitting at my Grandmother’s feet as she read the Bible in a wingback chair in the corner of the living room. I would ask her to tell me stories, and she would tell me bits and pieces about growing up in segregated Virginia, going to school and more. And today, I work to fill in those gaps in the story via film. It’s important to me to share a more full and complete story of African American history in this country.