Early Doc for Festival

   The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival will present “The Loving Story” as a special event on Sunday at 4 p.m. The screening, at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, anticipates the festival’s annual event, scheduled for Dec. 6 to 8 this year.

    “The Loving Story” is a feature-length 2011 documentary by Nancy Buirski of New York City, the founder and former 10-year director of the noted Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C. It chronicles the story of Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, a mixed-race couple who married in Washington, D.C., in 1958 and returned to their home state of Virginia, where they were arrested and their marriage nullified.

    Their fight to overturn the edict led to the Supreme Court and a landmark decision stating that “under the Constitution, the freedom to marry or not to marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state.” That ruling made all miscegenation laws illegal.

    A post-film panel discussion will include the co-producer Patti Romeu and the film consultant and New York University history professor Dr. Martha Hodes.