Singin' in the Grain

A Minnesota Czech Story

Directed by Al Milgrom

All-singing, all-dancing, this is the lively, lovely story of a village polka band and its city cousins, shot in the bread-basket of southern Minnesota. Singin' in the Grain captures what it means to be a Czech-American today and, by extension, one's own identity as an American. In folksong and dance, the Eddie Shimota Polka Band is followed for more than 40 years and three generations by documentarist Al Milgrom (The Dinkytown Uprising). After the post-communist 1989 Velvet Revolution, a new generation of immigrants arrives with their own folk-Slavic beat and different vibes, a far cry from Eddie's world. As Minnesota's "Czech Triangle" (New Prague, Montgomery, Veseli and Lonsdale) and St. Paul's Sokol Hall celebrate with symbolic food, dance, costume, parades, and holidays defining who they are, the film becomes a passport for re-examining America's historic immigrant odyssey.