'Not In' Southampton

The Hamptons International Film Festival has scheduled another free screening of "Not in Our Town," a film detailing how the community of Billings, Mont., banded together to oppose racist hate groups that had moved into their town.

Jacqui Lofaro, president of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, will lead a panel discussion following the film. The third in a series of screenings designed to help spread the film's anti-hate message, it will take place in the Southampton High School auditorium on Sunday beginning at 3 p.m.

The film shows how, after swastikas were painted on a Jewish resident's house, a local painters union set to work; how, when a group of skinheads began attending an African American church in an act of intimidation, groups of residents of all races began attending as well; how, when houses with Chanukah menorahs in their windows were targeted by rock-throwers, the candelabras went up in the windows of many neighboring houses in an act of solidarity.

A discussion of racism in East Hampton, which was characterized as both overt and insidious, followed a Guild Hall screening of the film last month. East Hampton residents, members of the clergy and the East Hampton Town Disabilities Advisory Board, Audrey Gaines, the town director of youth services, and East Hampton High School students all spoke at that forum.