Friday, October 16, 2015
The new faith-based movie, "Woodlawn," tells a story inspired by the spiritual awakening that lifted the 1973 Woodlawn High School football team to achieve great things on the field; it was filmed in Birmingham last fall and opens nationwide in about 1,500 theaters nationwide today.
It's a story of football, and features future Alabama and NFL great Tony Nathan and legendary Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, but it's more a story of the civil rights struggle and faith. (Read more about the story behind the film here.)
According to Woodlawn High School football coach Cornelius Turner, it was important for current students and football players to learn the story.
He found that many people--including himself--didn't appreciate the history of Woodlawn.
"I'm sure many of our players and students aren't totally familiar with story of Tony Nathan," Turner said. "I actually just have a minimum knowledge of him. I knew he played here at Woodlawn, at the University of Alabama, and later the Miami Dolphins, but that was it."
"I loved finding out more about the story of Tony Nathan," he said.
To that end, The Edge 12 movie theatre in Birmingham hosted Woodlawn students for a special screening of the film a day before it opened nationwide. Members of Briarwood Presbyterian Church purchased the tickets.
Prior to the screening, filmmaker Andrew Erwin told the students why the story is important.
"There's a power in somebody's true story, somebody that's already walked a similar situation and gone through so much and to see how they overcame, I think that has a lot to say to a new generation," he said. "Hopefully we'll see that and say, wow, one person like that can make an impact, maybe I can, too."
