Bloomington Premiere
IU Cinema Jon Vickers Scoring Award
First screened as a world-premiere live streaming performance in 2021, catch IU Cinema's theatrical premiere of IU alumnus Patrick Holcomb's new orchestral score for one of the greatest documentary achievements of cinematic history.
In 1924, neophyte filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, who would later co-direct King Kong (1933), hooked up with journalist and sometime-spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an adventure. They found excitement, danger, and unparalleled drama in the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to take their herds to pasture. The filmmakers captured unforgettable images of courage and determination as the Bakhtiari braved the raging and icy waters of the half-mile-wide Karun River. Although many documentary historians consider Grass second only to Nanook of the North, few people have actually ever seen this legendary film. This restored and full-length version will astonish today’s audiences with its beautiful photography and heart-stopping adventure. Presented with a recorded orchestral score by Patrick Holcomb that was world-premiered in IU Cinema's Virtual Screening Room in 2021. [71 min; documentary; silent film with intertitles]
Celebrating its first decade in 2026, the IU Cinema Vickers Scoring Award is named after IU Cinema’s founding director Jon Vickers; it is an IU Cinema-exclusive program produced in partnership with the Jacobs School of Music, and is generously endowed by former IU Trustee the Honorable P.A. Mack Jr.
"On rare occasions, the moving picture thrusts its head from the primeval muck of mediocrity and proclaims, in loud, clear tones—'I have an honorable place in the scheme of artistic creation. I can do great things!'" — Robert E. Sherwood, LIFE
"Deliberately styled as a story of man's triumph over nature, Grass is as much a mythic narrative of migration and settlement as a simple travelogue." — Jamie Russell, BBC.com
"Topographically beautiful and historically potent." — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Any film screened at IU Cinema may contain content that viewers find sensitive or upsetting. Visit our Audience Advisories page to learn more.
