The Gretna Carnival Club (Krewe of Grela) was established in 1947. The first parade rolled by horse-drawn carriages through the streets of the city. The City Council asked the Krewe in 1985 to move from Saturday to showcase on Mardi Gras day, Fat Tuesday. The rest is Mardi Gras history.
Become a part of that history by riding in the Krewe of Grela's Mardi Gras Day Parade in 2015!
About the DVD The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.
