City of a Million Dreams

To most people, jazz funerals are a mystery.

In 2005, writer and videographer Deb Cotton leaves “hard-hearted Hollywood” for New Orleans, and becomes a chronicler of the parading club culture spawned by the legacy of funerals with music. This tradition is carried by the prolific clarinetist Michael White, renowned for playing “the widow’s wail” in sorrowful dirges. When Hurricane Katrina hits, White loses everything in the catastrophic flooding. In his struggle to rebuild, White becomes an everyman, embodying the resurrection spirit of jazz funerals.

Deb and Michael take us on a journey into the city’s past, searching for answers in the face of tragedies both present and past.

As Deb follows the parading culture through the aching recovery, Michael explores his ancestral roots in the dawn of jazz. The danced-memory of enslaved Africans charges a reimagining of antebellum Congo Square, juxtaposed with the grandeur of European marching bands. With burial pageants as a mirror on the city’s history, the film hits a violent turning point at a parade shooting, plunging Deb and Michael into a search for the city’s soul.

Touring with the Film

Tim Watson (Editor, Co-Writer, Co-Producer) is a documentary editor, writer, and producer based in New Orleans. Much of his work has been at the intersection of music, social issues, and history in Louisiana and New Orleans. His films have been seen on PBS, HBO, and other networks in the U.S. and Europe; on many streaming outlets; and at many film festivals around the world. He has had key roles on more than 20 feature-length documentaries, and has advised on many others.