The TCM Classic Film Fest opened Thursday with a 50th anniversary screening of In the Heat of the Night, the classic film adaptation starring Sidney Poitier and the late Rod Steiger that follows a homicide in a Mississippi town and the violent racism it unearths.

Before the screening, TCM personality Ben Mankiewicz hosted a discussion with Heat director Norman Jewison, producer Walter Mirisch and actor Lee Grant. Poitier was in attendance, but remained in the audience.