February is generally a throwaway month. The happy holidays are long gone – but not your holiday weight – and flirtatious spring refuses to commit (thank God, since you still need to lose that holiday weight). If you're black, you can celebrate your history; if you're newly enamored, you can rock Valentine's Day. For the rest of us, there's little to mitigate the midwinter blahs.

 Unless you're a movie maniac living in Beaufort.

 Beaufort International Film Festival returns to the USCB Center for the Arts

"I feel like we’ve always had a diamond in the rough, but I think the diamond’s got a bit more polish to it, now.”

– Ron Tucker, Executive Director, Beaufort International Film Festival.

“We learn from our audience. We learn from our volunteers. It’s a constant process of evolution.”

– Rebecca Berry Tucker, President, Beaufort Film Society

Chris Brinker honored with Robert Smalls Award posthumously.

Friday, February 8, 2013. I’m listening to my phone interview with filmmaker Chris Brinker from earlier in the week, late (as usual) for my deadline. The producer-turned-director is wrapping up production on a film he’s developed for a decade and a half, the dark fact-based crime drama, Whiskey Bay.

Part Two: Enter a "Deep Throat"

Read Part One: The Discovery

It took three years of digging. I had solved the dinner party question. Hurricanes usually turn away from our coast during the fall season. And now I know why. Yes, it is possible for them to break through; but it is rare. What lay ahead of me was nothing short of a Sherlock Holmes story. But in this case, it was a true story... one that I will never forget. And this story involved a "Deep Throat."