Singin' in the Grain (2019)

The story of a village polka band and its city cousins, shot in a bread-basket corner of the nation, "Singin' in the Grain" captures what it means to be Czech-American today and, by extension, defining American ethnic identity.The Eddie Shimota polka band its small-town world, tracked by camera for more than 40 years by documentarist Al Milgrom ("The Dinkytown Uprising") , meets a new immigrant combo specializing in gypsy rock. From distant Moravia in the Czech Republic, it's far cry to Eddie's world in Minnesota's "Czech Triangle" : New Prague,Montgomery, Veseli and Lonsdale and St.Paul's Sokol Hall. The yearly rituals of the old and the new generations--from symbolic food,music,dance ,parades and language -defining and preserving who they are--- becomes a passport for exploring America's historic immigrant odysseys.