Dying in Dixieland (2009)

Official Selection Odense Film Festival 2010 Each year around 50 people are executed in the US. The vast majority of executions take place in Texas by lethal injection. Since 1997 Karl Chamberlain has been on death row in Texas because he raped and murdered a 30-year-old woman in her apartment in Dallas in 1991. Dying in Dixieland follows Karl's mother, an old hippie and now a practicing Muslim, who hopes that her prayers will save her son's life as she tries to understand what turned her once sweet little son into a violent criminal. She shares her concerns with a group of women, pen pals of Karl who in turn have developed boyfriend-like relationship with the condemned man on death row. For Karl's mother it is not just about Karl's life but also her own. The pending execution is the culmination of a turbulent life with nine children. The last time she visited her son on death row, it was so hard on her, that she wanted to take her own life. Her friends now fear that if Karl is not pardoned, this execution might lead her to attempt suicide. This film also introduces the victim's lawyer and family in the attempt to understand a tragic situation where everybody will lose out, but where love also seems to overcome even the worst sex crime.