🧵 In Today’s Edition

1. A Taste Worth Changing Plans for at Black Magnolia
2. “Home is Distant Shores” Film Festival Comes to Greensboro

The lemon blueberry rolls at Black Magnolia Southern Patisserie. (Gale Melcher for The Thread)

Black Magnolia Serves Up Comfort, with a Twist

Last summer, I was still working at Triad City Beat and living in Winston-Salem. I ate my first cinnamon roll from Black Magnolia Southern Patisserie in Greensboro right before I got a job offer that would’ve taken me a couple of states south.

Over the next week or so, I see-sawed between staying because I still had so much to write about here and leaving because it was a good opportunity. I’m pretty sure that the prospect of losing access to these cinnamon rolls was what tipped the scales, and I’m so glad. I’m still in Greensboro at a new gig, and trying my hand at this week’s food column. As writers, we usually have a plan about what we’re going to write. I walked into Black Magnolia, searching for comfort with a plan to write about their classic cinnamon rolls.

But when I stepped into owner Venée Pawlowski’s kitchen and saw her slathering lemon curd onto dough, I was a little kid again. My plans changed.

Read the full story here.

— Gale Melcher

Thanks for reading The Thread, a 3x week newsletter written by Greensboro editor Joe Killian and reporters Sayaka Matsuoka and Gale Melcher. Reach us with tips or ideas at greensboro@theassemblync.com.

A screenshot from “Fugetso-Do,” a short documentary being screened during Home is Distant Shores this weekend. (Courtesy of Home is Distant Shores)

For Aby Rao, the concept of where and what home is has changed over the last 22 years. At first, when Rao immigrated to the U.S. from India in 2003, he thought of Dubai as the home to which he would one day return. Now, home is wherever his family—his wife and child—are. For the last six years, that’s been Morrisville.

This evolving idea of home and homeland is a familiar one for many immigrants and refugees. It informs the name of the film festival Rao founded in 2019: Home is Distant Shores. It started as a way for Rao to screen his first film, “Parallel Parking,” which followed a blossoming friendship between a Tibetan woman and a Dominican man. 

It’s since developed into an annual festival, usually held in Cary, that screens films by and about immigrants and refugees. This year, the festival ran in early May at the Cary Theater, where the event has been held for the last four years. This weekend, in conjunction with the New Arrivals Institute and PAVE NC, a version of the festival will screen in Greensboro for the first time.

“One of the milestones of a growing festival is to take these films on the road,” Rao said. “It’s to give the opportunity to a local community to watch them.”

Aby Rao is the co-founder and festival director of Home Is Distant Shores Film Festival. (Courtesy of Home is Distant Shores)

Greensboro has long been home to many immigrant and refugee communities. People from Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Central and Latin America make up a growing portion of the city’s population. Greensboro also boasts the largest population of Montagnard people outside of Vietnam. Bringing Home is Distant Shores to Greensboro just made sense, said Tina Firesheets, the co-founder of PAVE NC, an Asian-American advocacy group.

“I get tired of reading about things and seeing things in other towns like Chapel Hill and Raleigh,” Firesheets said. “Sometimes, I think, I wish we could do things like that here.”

So instead of trying to host her own film festival, which she has done in the past, Firesheets connected with Rao to bring Home is Distant Shores to Greensboro. The event, which takes place Aug. 17 at the Van Dyke Performance Space, will feature 11 films. 

Firesheets’ involvement began when she attended this year’s festival in Cary with a friend. It was her first time, and she was blown away.

“Just the breadth of the films,” she said. “They are beautifully made, and even though they are short films, they are very powerful. We left thinking that next year we want to return and bring more people.”

For the Greensboro festival, Rao helped Firesheets and Leilani Roughton of the New Arrivals Institute curate the films. All have been screened at a Home is Distant Shores event in the past.

One of them focuses on the story of an old Japanese confectionery shop. Another centers on a mother-daughter relationship and the struggles of straddling two cultures. Another captures the grief journey of an Islamic school teacher. One of Rao’s own films—“Letter From a Refugee”—features a Montagnard artist from Greensboro.

For Rao, it was important to have a variety of films featuring communities from varying countries and those that have a local tie. For Firesheets, showcasing multicultural stories focused on the immigrant and refugee experience is vital, especially in this political moment.

“With all of the anti-immigration actions this year, and the cuts and funding, I thought I would really love to partner with the New Arrivals Institute on this,” Firesheets said.

Proceeds from tickets will go directly to the institute, and attendees have the option to make extra donations.

While the films are all made by immigrants, Firesheets and Rao say their power lies in their universality.

“These stories are, yes, immigrant and refugee stories,” Firesheets said. “But they are human stories and family stories and about the love between people and the struggles between people.” 

“It’s not limited to a country or a race or an ethnicity,” she said. “These are all life themes that we all share.”

— Sayaka Matsuoka

(Disclosure: Sayaka Matsuoka has written for PAVE NC.)

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