October 8, 2026 — Thursday Edition

Happy Thursday, Durham. This is one of the biggest weekends of the fall and nearly all of it lands on Saturday: a Homecoming parade at 8, a brand-new film festival at 1, a football game at 1, a free concert at 3 and a festival headliner at 7. Sunday looks wet. So the plan writes itself — do everything Saturday, sleep Sunday. It starts tonight at DPAC. Let's get into it.

Durham has spent decades being the place where documentaries get made. On Saturday it finally gets a festival where the documentaries are about Durham.

The first-ever Southern Doc Fest takes over the Durham Arts Council on Saturday, October 10. It's put on by the Southern Documentary Fund, the Durham nonprofit that has been funding and mentoring Southern filmmakers for years and has wanted its own festival for nearly as long. A city arts grant made year one possible, and artistic director Christopher Everett made a smart call with it: start at home. Every film on the slate has a Durham connection.

There are two features. Humble in the Jungle follows Durham rapper Mike G Smalls, who makes records and also fixes your pipes — he's a working plumber — and he'll perform live. Always Looking is a portrait of Titus Brooks Heagins, the Durham photographer who has spent a career pointing his camera at people most cameras skip. Heagins and his students will be shooting free portraits all day, which may be the best door prize any film festival has ever offered.

Then four shorts, and this is where it gets very local. Becoming Yamazushi, narrated by G Yamazawa, tells the story of his family's restaurant. Once Upon a Wetland is about the Beaver Queen Pageant, which you either already love or need explained to you in person. As In Death is about the memorial quilt for Durham's homicide victims. And CB: Power to the Player honors Duke's first Black basketball player. Filmmakers and subjects stay for questions after the screenings.

Pro tip: the day pass is $45 and covers everything; single-screening tickets are also on sale if you can only spare an hour. The Arts Council is at 120 Morris Street, a ten-minute walk from American Tobacco — so you can catch the early films, walk down for the free Good Moon show, and walk back for the evening block. That's a full Saturday for less than a parking ticket.

📅 Sat, Oct 10 · 1–9 PM · Durham Arts Council, 120 Morris St · Day pass $45 (INDY Week · Details)

🥙 A Taste of Greece is this weekend. Go Saturday. St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, out at 8306 NC Highway 751, opens up Saturday and Sunday from 11 to 7: gyros, pastries, a marketplace, an attic sale and tours of the church. Admission and parking are free, and the lot fills. With rain likely Sunday, Saturday lunch is the move. Bring a bag for the baklava you're going to say is for the office. (Triangle on the Cheap)

🍋 A rainy-Sunday plan, with citrus. Durham Distillery is running a sours cocktail class Sunday at 3. It's $75, you make the drinks yourself, and you'll be indoors while the weather does its thing. Book ahead; these are small. (Downtown Durham)

🍕 A name to file away: Compa Pizza & Pasta. It turned up in developer documents for the Latta Park project at Guess and Latta roads in north Durham. No operator named, no opening date. We'll watch it — that corner of town could use a red-sauce place. (WRAL)

Two games, one afternoon, pick your screen. NCCU (2-4) hosts William & Mary at 1 PM for Homecoming, and the Eagles could use it — three straight losses, the last a 38-31 heartbreaker to Campbell. Nothing fixes a locker room like a full house on Homecoming. Duke (4-0) is at Georgia Tech at 3:30 on ESPN2, coming off a week of rest and a 62-7 win before that. It's the Blue Devils' toughest trip since Illinois. Win it and next Saturday's game against North Carolina at Wallace Wade becomes the biggest football game this town has hosted in a long while. And tonight: Duke basketball vs. Belmont, 7 PM at Cameron. (Duke · NCCU)

Three good days and one soggy one. Today: sunny, 84 — more August than October, and a warm night for walking between shows. Friday: mostly sunny, 80. Saturday: partly sunny, 75, and dry for the parade, the game and the free concert; clouds thicken after dark and showers arrive overnight. Sunday: showers likely, high near 72, with a rumble of thunder possible in the afternoon. We need the rain — September ran well short — so nobody complain. Just front-load your weekend.

6 — Durham films at the first Southern Doc Fest · $45 — a day pass to all of them · 3 — nights of Good Moon at DPAC · 8 AM — parade time on Fayetteville Street · 1 PM — kickoff at O'Kelly-Riddick · 84 — today's high · 70% — Sunday's chance of rain

The 9th Street Journal says goodbye to Lula & Sadie's. The Lakewood restaurant served its last brunch on September 20, six years after it started as a stall in the Durham Food Hall. This piece is the proper send-off. Chef and owner Harry Monds is plain about why: what he pays for ingredients keeps climbing, and his customers are squeezed too. The regulars talk less about the food than about the room — the jazz, the pace, a place where you could hear each other. Monds is moving on to catering. It's a short read, and a useful one the next time you wonder whether your favorite spot needs you to show up. (9th Street Journal)

One of Saturday's films is about a rapper who is also a plumber. Hold on to that, because it's the most Durham sentence we've typed all year.

Everybody here has a second thing. Your bartender is in a band. Your kid's teacher throws pots. The guy who fixed your water heater has an album out. The woman at the next desk sews a beaver costume every spring for reasons she will happily explain. Nobody in this town is only their job, and nobody finds that strange.

Some cities ask what you do. Durham asks what else you do — and then shows up to watch. Saturday you can see it on a screen, with the plumber in the room. Go clap for him.

Much love, Durham. 🐂

— Michael & Anne · Written from Trinity Park ☕

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