“West of Memphis,” the new documentary about the West Memphis Three case produced by Peter Jackson and Damien Echols, will screen in Little Rock and around Memphis this week, months before the film’s theatrical release. It screens at Market Street at 7 p.m. this Wednesday and Thursday, Sept 12-13. No word yet on how the theater is going to handle tickets. I’ve got an inquiry out; we’ll keep you posted.

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UPDATE: Tickets to all screenings are free and will be awarded on a first-come-first serve basis. There are screenings scheduled for Sept. 12-13, Oct. 2-3, Oct. 9-10 and Oct. 30-Nov. 1 at Market Street in Little Rock; Sept. 18-19, Oct. 2-3, and Oct. 16-17 at 7 p.m. at Malco Hollywood in Jonesboro; Sept. 18-19 and Oct. 23-24 at 7 p.m. at Hot Springs Mall Cinema; Sept. 25-26 and Oct. 16-17 at 6 p.m. at Carmike Village 5 in Mountain Home; and possible screenings in Blytheville, which have not yet been confirmed.

These screenings fall on the heels of “West of Memphis” playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Johnny Depp and Damien Echols revealed that they have matching tattoos and Peter Jackson said he plans to never visit Arkansas.

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David Koon caught an early private screening of “West of Memphis” back in January and had this to say:

In short: “West of Memphis” is a hell of a thing, and not just because it’s a document about the millions of dollars and millions of people-hours it took to set three men free who shouldn’t have been locked up in the first place (driving home, it will definitely make you think long and hard about the fate of those wrongfully convicted who don’t have access to the legal, financial and public-relations machinery that finally pried the jailhouse doors off their hinges last August). While the film definitely has an agenda, sometimes it takes the determination that an agenda can provide to put a puzzle this complex together.

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