Mardi Gras has long been synonymous with New Orleans. But, in fact, Mardi Gras began in Mobile, Alabama in 1703—more than a century-and-a-half before New Orleans picked up the tradition. To this day, it remains true to its roots, perhaps too true—Mobile’s Mardi Gras is still segregated. With quiet restraint and stunning cinematography, native daughter Margaret Brown explores one of the United States’ oldest traditions and escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals organized along color lines.

Each spring, in the weeks and days leading up to Mardi Gras on Ash Wednesday, Mobile becomes entrenched in preparations:  lavish floats are constructed, parades and masquerade balls are organized, secret mystic societies meet, and the imaginations and the wallets of residents and expectant visitors are occupied with selecting gowns, tuxedoes and masks.

Yet, it all happens in duplicate. The black and white residents of Mobile select their own royal courts, participate in their own parades, and indulge in rituals that resemble one another but bear the distinct characteristics of each community. On the surface, the happy revelers do not question the divide, but with racial tensions often running high, overt economic barriers largely separating their communities, and stories of lynching in the not-too-distant past, the segregation can’t help but cast a shadow on the events.

THE ORDER OF MYTHS shows the tension between preserving cultural heritage and self-identity versus acknowledging that separate is not equal. Brown does not insist upon answers, but brings to light complex and difficult questions about race in America.

—Sky Sitney