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Ross McElwee, the director of this film and the more well known SHERMAN’S MARCH, is a Harvard professor who makes meandering documentaries loosely based upon a seed idea that follow wherever the process of germination might take it. Often the documentaries turn inward on the director, but that’s alright because McElwee is equipped with a dry wit that makes him a great subject. BRIGHT LEAVES follows McElwee in a search for and study of his family’s history and involvement in the early tobacco industry, possible inspiration for a Hollywood film, and the general toll tobacco takes good and bad on those in the south and in Charlotte, NC(Elwee’s hometown) in particular. Full of delightful chance encounters that are then are turned into beautiful documentary moments, BRIGHT LEAVES is a wonderful, highly enjoyable, and personal example of the documentary essay. Go see it tonight @ the HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE, w/ Ross McElwee present for the screening and speaking afterward.