Premiere Screening of Jury of Her Peers Dec. 16

A special premiere screening of "Jury of Her Peers", directed by William Rock, is scheduled for Tuesday, December 16 at The Last Picture House in Studio 1. The event is sponsored by YWCA Quad Cities. Film begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 and available at https://givebutter.com/JuryOfHerPeers

"Jury of Her Peers" 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. The new film is the flagship project of the Des Moines-based company Will Do Films, LLC.

Written and directed by William Rock (head of Will Do Films), 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.