Desert Bayou

Alex LeMay's documentary about displaced African Americans who found themselves abruptly relocated in the chaotic weeks following Hurricane Katrina from the racially diverse New Orleans to the virtually all-white state of Utah achieves an admirable balance, neither vilifying nor sanctifying either the uprooted New Orleanians nor the sometimes-hostile, largely Mormon Utahns.

LeMay begins by introducing a cross-section of people who needed somewhere to rest and get back on their feet after the hurricane and subsequent flooding, but eventually focuses on two families: The Pleasants, Curtis, Gwendolyn and their five children, and Clifford Andrews, unmarried fat...