Scout is coming to Mathews next week.

Mary Badham, the actress who played the role in the Academy Award-winning 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird,” will be the guest speaker at a screening of the film at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, at Mathews High School auditorium. The event is sponsored by the Mathews Film Society.

The doors will open at 6:15. The screening and lecture are free and open to the public, with a $10 donation suggested.

Interest in the movie and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel upon which it was based has been on the rise recently with the release last month of Harper Lee’s second book, “Go Set a Watchman.” That novel, which was written prior to “Mockingbird,” tells of an older Scout returning home to the fictional Alabama town of Maycomb.

The 1962 movie, which closely follows Lee’s novel, features a 10-year-old Scout as its narrator and protagonist. The story takes on the issues of racial injustice, loss of innocence, c...