08/25/2025
Please join the Fairhope Museum of History on Saturday, August 30th, at 1:00pm in the Museum Council Chamber to welcome Mary Riser, Founder and Board Chair of the Fairhope Film Festival. In "The Noble Experiment", Mary Riser will discuss the history and process of her new documentary film that will be screened at the Fairhope Film Festival in November 2025. Please see below for more details regarding "The Noble Experiment".
Admission is FREE and open to the public and refreshments will be provided!
🔹The Noble Experiment:
A documentary film of the Italian Agricultural Colony in Coastal Alabama
Produced and Directed by Mary Riser, Founder and Board Chair of the Fairhope Film Festival
For those of us with an interest in preserving the history of our beloved region, we are well aware of the vanishing traces of the past. Among the hustle and bustle of current day Baldwin County, there are precious few places left to see what once was, where we came from.
Living in Old Town Daphne and driving past the Manci corner daily, Mary Riser was moved to make a documentary film telling the story of the Italian colony that was among the first efforts to populate Daphne.
She and her production crew interviewed descendants of the original 29 families, and filmed the homesites, businesses, churches these families created. And walked among their ancestral headstones in the Catholic cemetery.
The Italians who arrived here at the turn of the century were responsible in a most significant way for the way Daphne grew into the wonderful town it is today.
The Trione family grocery, that once popular general store, next to Manci’s popular spot, was at one time the site of the ONLY telephone in town, and all at once, the post office, bus station and market, too. Near it was the first town bank, established in 1924. And a short distance away stands a majestic Christ the King Catholic Church built by these first Italian residents.
The importance of preserving the legacies of these families is apparent when we see how quickly evidence of the past is vanishing. Few people who were alive in the early days are still around.
This short documentary tells the inspiring story of these first Italian colonists who have become such an integral part of today’s vibrant Daphne-Fairhope community. 🔹
