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A special screening of "Jury of Her Peers", filmed in Iowa and based on a real Iowa unsolved murder, is scheduled for 3pm Saturday, April 4th at Decorah’s Viking Theatre. Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening."Jury of Her Peers" is a murder mystery with a comedic twist that highlights an eerie true-crime case from deep in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century American heartland: the shocking – and officially unsolved – axe-murder of Iowa farmer John Hossack. The case exposed small-town rivalries and prejudices, as well as the feminine strength that has kept the incident in the public imagination for more than a century.
Written and directed by William Rock, produced by Amy Nigg and shot by frequent 48-Hour Film Festival filmmaker John Hansen, "Jury of Her Peers" is the first feature-length film treatment of the Hossack case, though its roots in live theatre run deep.
The case was originally reported on by Davenport-born Susan Glaspell (1876-1948), then a young journalist and graduate of Drake University. Later, Glaspell would become the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “godmother of modern American drama,” penning the short play Trifles (1916), inspired by the Hossack case. "Trifles" is one of Glaspell’s best known works, is still often re-published and performed onstage, and has been adapted into an Oscar-nominated short film, as well as television productions.
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Event Venue
Viking 3, 111 N. Mechanic,Decorah, Iowa, United States
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