Films on stripmining and mountaintop removal mining
Some of these films are available from any local public library in
West Virginia from WVLC. Others are not. Sources are indicated. Arranged chronologically
BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN WAS MOVED
58 M. 1971 16MM/VHS McGraw-Hill
Shows the determined efforts of one coal miner to save the mountains of Raleigh County, WV. from the “strippers.” Demonstrates how he succeeded in obtaining strong state legislation in the name of environmental conservation. Access:WVLC IN MEMORY OF THE LAND AND PEOPLE 50 M. 1977 Omnificent Systems
This is a landmark documentary that was shown in Congress and helped get federal laws passed on regulating stripmining. It is an independent production by Robert Gates on the ravages of strip mining around the country, both in Appalachia and in the other coalmining areas of the country. There is no script. No narrator. Music of Bartok is interwoven with songs and dialogue of people who live in the stripped regions. Access: WVLC 16 mm. DVD - March 2007- Robert Gates – 304-342-2624. See DVD description below.
APPALACHIA: NO MAN’S LAND
28 M. 1981 VHS/16MM Mary Knoll
The recent super-merger of Conoco and DuPont sets the importance of this incisive film investigation into Appalachia. Filmed in Mingo County, WV. and Martin County, Ky. Interviews with the natives, organizers, and poets are intercut with the scenes of destruction. Floods, black lung, and uncontrolled strip mining disasters which are the result of ownership by huge multinational corporations which are primary forces in Appalachia. The postscript lists results of the arc land ownership study just published. Access:WVLC
All Shaken Up: Mountaintop Removal Blasting and Its Effects On Coalfield Residents
1998 Omni Productions 32 M. This film was produced locally in the summer of 1998 by Charleston filmmaker Bob Gates and reporter Penny Loeb, who interviewed 45 West Virginia residents affected by the blasting required for the form of strip mining called “mountaintop removal.” The video shows damage to wells and houses and describes the psychological effects of round-the-clock blasting on residents who live in the proximity of the mines. Access: WVLC, purchase from Robert Gates – 304-342-2624. Fight to Save Kayford Mountain1998 Lisa Millimet 15 M. GOLDENSEAL contributor Lisa Millimet, a New Hampshire resident who once lived in
West Virginia and still owns land here, videotaped the effects of mountaintop removal mining in the Kayford area. Larry Gibson, who is leading a one-man fight to save his family’s 50 acres at Kayford Mountain from mountaintop removal, is the focus of this short documentary. Access: WVLC Nightline – Mountaintop Removal Mining
1998 25 mins. ABC NewsTed Koppel explores the effects of mountaintop removal mining with opponent Larry Gibson and proponents. Gibson shows how the constant explosions have affected his remaining land including the family cemetery. Proponents argue that the US needs more domestic energy from coal. Access: WVLC and ABC News.Access:WVLC
To Save the Land and People
59 mins. 1999 Appalshop Strip or “surface” mining – where coal is blasted and scraped from the mountain surface – increased dramatically in the Appalachian region in 1961 when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) signed contracts to buy over 16 million tons of strip mined coal. Though cheaper for the buyer than deep mined coal, the damage done by strip mining was far reaching and had immediate impact on coalfield residents. To Save the Land and People is a history of the early grassroots efforts to stop strip mining in eastern Kentucky, where “broad form” deeds, signed at the beginning of the 20th Century, were used by coal operators to destroy the surface land without permission or compensation of the surface owner. The program focuses on the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People, whose members used every means possible – from legal petitions and local ordinances, to guns and dynamite – to fight strip mining. The documentary makes a powerful statement about the land and how we use it, and how its misuse conflicts with local cultures and values. Access: Appalshop Razing Appalachia72 mins. 2002 Room 152 Productions.The place is Pigeonroost Hollow, Blair, West Virginia. The time is May 1998. On one side is Arch Coal, America’s second-largest coal company, who plans to expand its mountaintop strip mine above the town. The coal company is joined by state political leaders and 400 union miners whose jobs are on the line. On the other side? The forty families remaining in Blair whose remarkable fight saved their community from being buried under the rock and soil debris of this massive expansion. Access: Bullfrog Films 55 min. version www.bullfrogfilms.com.
Coal Bucket Outlaw
27 mins. 2002 Appalshop In the spirit of Dancing Outlaw, Tom Hansell explores the world of overweight coal-hauling trucks in eastern Kentucky. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that coal produces over half of our nation’s electricity. This film is built around a day in the life of a
Kentucky coal truck driver. This digital documentary gives Americans a direct look at where our energy comes from, and reveals the human and environmental price we pay for our national addiction to fossil fuels. The narrative line follows two Kentucky coal truck drivers as they chase their version of the American dream. Viewers learn how the economics of the coal business demand that both drivers break the law every day. A veteran independent trucker plays the “cops and robbers” game with the weight crew from the Department of Transportation. A young driver debates whether to keep hauling coal or to move his family to the city. And, a father describes a collision with a coal truck that killed his teenage son. Facts and figures about coal as an energy source will place these individual struggles in a national context. Coal Bucket Outlaw examines the connection between coal haulers and the larger system that produces America’s electricity. If outlaws deliver half of our nation’s energy, are consumers and policymakers completely innocent? Access: http://www.appalshop.org/film/ $35 for small libraries and groups. Normal price is $150 college/university. $24.95 for home use only. Mucked: Man-made Disasters—Flash Floods in the Coalfields52 mins. 2003 Omni ProductionsRobert Gates has been making films about the effects of stripmining since his first film, “In Memory of the Land and People.”(1977) Earlier he produced “All Shaken Up”(19 
about the effects of blasting from mountaintop mining on to the homes of people in the Southern coalfields. This film shows the relationship between mountaintop removal coal mining, steep slope timbering, and the wave of major regional flash floods that began on July 8, 2001 in
Southern WV counties. Over 300,000 acres of land have been mined by this practice; valley fills have filled in 750 to 1,000 miles of streams. Six major regional flash floods and the Liburn Disaster have resulted as well as major impacts on 47 communities, 12,000 homes and businesses, and an estimated 1 billion dollars in damages. People have been killed in these floods. Mucked was previewed at the Spring Fling conference for librarians in April 2002 and had its official world premiere in Nov. 2003 at the Shepherdstown American Conservation Film Festival. An earlier version, “Flood Stories,” had its premiere at the Flooded Out Film Festival in October, 2002. It won honorable mention in the investigative reporting category at EarthVision, an international environmental film festival in California. It was shown in 2004 by Santa Cruz public television. “Mucked” was also shown on WBGN in Pittsburgh during the Independent Filmmakers series Nov. 16-20, 2003. Bob and journalist Penny Loeb (who did a US News story on MTR and is writing a book on it) frequently work together to document the impacts of mountaintop removal and logging in the state of West Virginia. The flooding section of Penny’s website- www.wvcoalfield.com/flooding.htm -won second place in online reporting at the Society of Environmental Journalists 2003 awards (www.sej.org). Penny has a column in Nov. 2003 Blue Ridge Country magazine. Access: call him at (304) 342-2624 or e-mail him at: omni@ntelos.net. Also available on DVD.
Mountain Memories: An Appalachian Sense of Place
34 mins. 2003 Real Earth ProductionsAward-winning nature photographer Jim Clark is profiled in this story about his love and passion for nature photography.Clark is a native son of War, WV. The program has about 125 slides from the Allegheny Highlands of West Virginia, many of which also appear in Jim’s books. The program includes stories surrounding some of the photographs, childhood memories, his approach to nature photography, a devastating fire that destroyed all his work, and his concern about mountain top removal. Filmed by Hardy County filmmaker Ray Schmitt. Access: Ray Schmitt, Real Earth Productions. http://www.realearthproductions.com/. Kilowatt Ours2004 64 mins. Jeff BarrieJeff Barrie, director of “Arctic Quest” (2001), traveled across the Southern East states, looking at energy problems and solutions. He found that Americans are large users of energy, causing energy companies to use devastating mining techniques like mountaintop mining to maximize their efficiency. He also found that if Americans would conserve energy, this disastrous mining technique would not be necessary, and many other ills such as childhood asthma could be minimized. Access: http://www.kilowattours.org/ Modern Marvels: Coal Mines
2004 50 mins. History Channel Coal is an ancient source of energy. More than half our energy still comes from coal. WV State University historian Dr. Stuart McGhee (who starred in Gary Simmons’ series, “The Rock that Burns,”) talks about different ways that coal has been mined and how it is mined now. New techniques like mountaintop removal mining are shown. Appalachian activists talk about the many risks coal mining creates including massive flooding of people’s homes and neighborhoods. Industry leaders state their own position on these complaints. Access: $ 24.95 Product No. AAE-43704 History Channel Sludge 55 mins. 2005 Appalshop A documentary about the effects of the Martin County sludge flood in 2000, releasing 10 times more effluent into the environment than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The film focuses on the reactions of Martin County residents and Jack Spadaro, the long-time mine safety engineer who is now under threat from the Bush Administration for refusing to sign the official report on this disaster. Spadaro is a native West Virginian, working for more than 30 years on coal mine safety in West Virginia, most recently as director of the Mine and Health Safety Academy in Beckley, beginning his career as a mining engineer looking at the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Access: Appalshop. Thoughts In The Presence of Fear25 mins. 2005 Appalshop
Kentucky writer Wendell Berry reads his essay of the same name as scenes of Appalachian coalfields are shown. The images were captured by director Herb E. Smith throughout his 35 years as a filmmaker. The essay points to the violent consequences of the global economy and calls for a more locally based “peaceable economy.” Berry wrote the essay in reaction to events of September 11, 2001. James Caudill, Dirk Powell, Martha Scanlan, and Riley Baugus perform the musical score. It is based on Jean Ritchie’s Cool of the Day. Access: Appalshop
The Appalachians – series2005 180 mins Evening Star ProductionsMari-Lynn Evans, executive producer, was born and raised in Bulltown,
Braxton County, WV. After more than two decades producing hundreds of health and other films, she returns home to her beloved Appalachia. The four parts are -1. “First Frontier,” - Pre-History-1870 - native Americans, European pioneers, Civil War 2. “Barons, Feuds & White Lightening” - 1871-1929 - feuds, timber and coal, labor wars, moonshine and roaring 1920s 3. “Boom & Bust” - 1929-1965 - Great Depression, WWII, Migration in 1950s, War on Poverty 4. “Memories in a Modern World” - 1965-present - Legacy, Music, Land in Conflict (MTR), People and future of Appalachia. The Sierra Club, a sponsor, has built a good website for the series - www.sierraclub.org/appalachia. Random House published a book in conjunction with the series, edited by Ms. Evans, “The Appalachians.” Access: Every main public library in WV has a copy, sent to them in June 2005. Or the Sierra Club website The Kingmaker – Don Blankenship2005 30 mins. WVPBS Reporter Anna Sale narrates this investigation of Don Blankenship, the president of Massey Energy. Blankenship told the Charleston press he considered the report to be balanced. Others think that it is not accurate because the damage he has done to the environment and workers’ health is minimized. He is famous for buying union mines, closing them, and reopening them as non-union. He is best known for financing the campaign against Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw in fall 2004, spending millions of dollars. ( This is shown in detail in Wayne Ewing’s film,” The Last Campaign.”) Appalshop footage of his early days is used, and various supporters present positive opinions about this management style and contributions to southern WV communities. Various reporters and detractors are also interviewed. The fact that he even threatened to sue WVPBS is noted. Access: WVPBS, $25, (304) 556-4900. Also available at You Tube - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kingmaker+don+blankenshipFive parts Black Diamonds
2006 95 mins. Catherine and Ann Pancake Black Diamonds charts the escalating drama in
Appalachia over the alarming increase in large mountaintop coal mines. These mammoth operations have covered 1200 miles of headwater streams with mining waste; demolished thousands of acres of hardwood forest; and flattened hundred of Appalachian mountain peaks. Citizen testimony and visual documentation interwoven with the perspectives of government officials, activists, and scientists create a riveting portrait of an American region fighting for its life–caught between the grinding wheels of the national appetite for cheap energy and an enduring sense of Appalachian culture, pride, and natural beauty. Filmmakers Catherine and Ann Pancake were born and raised in WV. Catherine has become an award-winning filmmaker and Ann is an award-winning WV author. Working for more than 4 years on this project, they have traveled throughout Appalachia to chronicle the unparalleled destruction. Interviews with Julia Bonds, Maria Gunnoe, Arley Johnson, Ken Hechler and William Maxey. Access: http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/index.html and Bullfrog Films. Bringing Down the Mountains 2006 14 mins. Greensburg Salem High School senior Kaitlyn Walton and juniors Jill Sompel and Stephanie Loughner produced the 14-minute film to describe what life is like around MTR. Coal River
Mountain Watch’s Hillary Hosta said, “The girls did a great job clearly articulating with pictures and narrative what can be a very complex issue. The piece is concise, to the point and moving.” It premiered on Feb. 11 at the West Virginia Energy Gathering” for young people. ( www.climateaction.net/content/wveg/) Limited copies are available for outreach and educational use. Access; bringingdownthemountains@yahoo.com. Mountain Mourning 2006 30 mins. Patchwork FilmsAllen Johnson, a co-founder of Christians for the Mountains, co- directed this film about the relationship between Christianity and mountaintop removal mining. He and co-director B.J. Gudmundsson have taken slides from other MTR groups, added their own narration and music, and greatly improved it with some of their own images. Many of the best known anti-MTR activists including Julia Bonds and Larry Gibson speak about the effects MTR has had on their personal lives. Many quotes from the Bible are placed on screen to remind the viewer of the Christian source for their anti-MTR beliefs. Also, powerful Christian music is used to make the film a profound experience. Johnson is the director of the Pocahontas County Free Libraries system that was chosen as one of the best three public libraries in the US in 2003. Website for CFM- www.christiansforthemountains.org Access: Patchwork Films. http://www.patchworkfilms.com/ Two other short films are included on the DVD of “Mountain Mourning”-
Look What They’ve Done - Maria’s Backyard
Film Two of The Mountain Mourning Collection21 minutesAn outing with Maria Gunnoe in Bob White, West Virginia, provides a snapshot of the Mountaintop Removal Mining that has moved into her back yard. Filmmakers B. J. Gudmundsson and Doug Chadwick traverse the rocky road up Cazy Mountain to survey the aftermath of a strip-mining operation. Maria’s Native American ancestry is revealed through her memories of family and their respect for the land. Her story is one of courage and strength that is woven around the heart by musical recordings of her mother, father and uncle. Keeper of the Mountains Film Three of The Mountain Mourning Collection 18 minutesLarry Gibson is the only permanent resident on Kayford
Mountain, just 35 miles from the capital city of Charleston,
West Virginia. For 19 years he has held on to his fifty acres – that which remains of his ancestral home. What was once a living community is now an island of life surrounded by death. The filmmakers join Larry and a band of friends as they pass through “Hell’s Gate” and – in one breathtaking moment – come upon “the end of the world.” TruthOut Videos - Go Tell It on the Mountain, Almost Level, West Virginia, Pennies of Promise
2006 various times Rebecca MacNeiceRebecca MacNeice made and posted these three digital videos about the effects of mountaintop removal mining. The first, “Mountain,” is about anti-MTR activist Larry Gibson giving a tour to other activists during a national conference on Memorial Day weekend 2006. The second, ‘Level” includes a brief narration given by WV’s only anti-MTR politician Dr. Ken Hechler and part of activist Doris “Granny D” Haddock’s speech given at the Memorial Day 2006 conference. “Pennies” is about a group of people who are trying to raise money to replace a toxic school, Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia, that is threatening by a coal silo and slurry pond that could destroy it. Access: http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
Mountaintop Removal
2006 57 min. Haw River Films
Michael C. O’Connell of Haw River Films has created an excellent new film about the environmental devastation known as “mountaintop removal mining.” In less than an hour a viewer sees both the pro and con, the natives who are affected and the
New York City writers who all have very definite opinions about the American way of producing electricity. One of the best things about this film is that pro-coal experts like
Bill Raney, the president of the WV Coal Association, have their say –and experts tell viewers the scientific truths which directly contradict Raney’s statements. This film is a welcome addition to other environmental films on MTR including Robert Gates’ two films, “All Shaken Up” and “Mucked,” Sasha Water’s “Razing Appalachia,” Catherine Pancake’s “Black Diamonds,”
“Moving Mountains” by Pa. school kids and B.J. Gudmundsson and Allen Johnson’s “Mountain Mourning.” I know of three other films on the subject that I look forward to watching.There is an impressive list of experts including the well-known
activists Larry Gibson, Julia Bonds, Maria Gunnoe, Allen Johnson and Ed Wiley, the grandfather of a girl who attends Marsh Fork Elementary. The experts include Jeff Goodell who wrote the cover story for the NY Times Sunday magazine and then “Big Coal,” Dr. Ben Stout, a Ph.D. from Wheeling Jesuit University, Dr. Schiffin from Williamson, a MD who cares for the residents injured by the pollution caused there by MTR, and Dr. Peter Huff from Duke. These interviews add great weight to the argument that the people of Appalachia are truly losing their health and
environment in horrible ways not described by Mr. Raney.The single biggest hero of this film is Ed Wiley who is shown meeting with Gov. Manchin and marching from Charleston to
Washington, DC to promote awareness of what is happening to his grandchild and all of thechildren attended the threatened grade school. The next biggest hero is Larry Gibson who is shown leading a march to a second family cemetery
already surrounded by the huge MTR site so well known to activists. I have not seen it before, but the large group that had to walk over company land to gain access to the second family cemetery is a truly poignant reminder of what is being lost.Several other pro-MTR people are also interviewed including one man who says that it is dangerous for “outsiders” to “interfere.” His comments really reminded me of the people interviewed for “Eyes on the Prize” and other Sixties documentaries on the race war that engulfed the South. One activist indeed talks about the “all out war” that is now taking place
in Appalachia – and thanks to publications such as Vanity Fair, The US News (both criticized by Raney), the NY Times and many other national publications and all of the films on MTR, national and international awareness is finally being achieved.I particularly enjoyed the soundtrack of this film that includes music by Donna the
Buffalo, Julie Miller, John Specker and Sarah Hawkes.
Hopefully Haw River Films will release it as a CD. This is no accident
since they earlier produced a film, “Grass Roots Stages” about a large
number of musicians including Donna the Buffalo (who recently visited
Charleston.) Other films they have produced include “Art in Motion,”
Haw River Films is located in
Pittsboro, North Carolina. You can
purchase a copy of the film from them for $20. Visit their website at -
http://www.hawriverfilms.com/index.html.
To visit the WV Coal Association website - http://www.wvcoal.com/index.asp.
Moving Mountains
2006 30 mins.
30 minutes, May 2006movingmountains@virginia.edu
Virginia Bendell Moore was a communications student at the
University of Virginia when she created this excellent new documentary on the effects of mountaintop removal mining, mainly in southern
West Virginia. Funding to produce it came from UVA media grants and was made at the Digital Media Lab there.She uses classic film clips, borrowed from “Harlan County, USA” and
other sources to counterpoise the scenes of destruction and denial that
take place on camera. I don’t know if every film on Appalachia needs to
open with a similar wailing, either by a man or a woman, but this film,
like many others, does open that way.The film opens with WV politicians like Earl Ray Tomlin and Senator
Rockefeller talking about the importance of coal to the state. Gov.
Manchin’s speech about “West Virginia – Open for Business” along with
his statements about “moving WV to the forefront of the coal industry”
are also shown. President Bill Raney is interviewed, talking about the
coal industry being “the real environmentalists,” echoing what Warren
Hylton, president of Patents Coal, says. There is nothing in the film
about the many coal mine deaths that took place last year.The “usual suspects” are interviewed on the anti-MTR side – Larry
Workman, Ed Wiley, and Maria Gunnoe. Also interviewed is Lenny Kohn from Appalachian Voices, Sam Cook, Appalachian studies prof at Virginia Tech, Kenny from Logan County about the bad water, and others.
The photography, editing, music, and sound are all good. This film, like
all of the other new MTR films, was made for little money using
contemporary digital video equipment. The film was shown at UVA in
Charlottesville and several other places. Hopefully many more students
and people around the Appalachian area and the rest of the world will
get to see it because it does a fine job showing “both sides” of the
environmental war going on in our backyards.
They assisted the filmmaker on this film – as they have on virtually
every film made on MTR.) Access: How to get a copy of this film is unknown at this time.
NATIONAL MEMORIAL FOR THE MOUNTAINS*
2006 2.51 mins. I Love Mountains Introductory video for the National Memorial for the Mountains, an online memorial in Google Earth that tells the story of 450 mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal.
This video is part of the National Memorial for the Mountains, hosted by www.ilovemountains.org. Access: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpSDY6r2BVc Or http://www.ilovemountains.org./multimedia/#video. Note – there are 71 other videos on mountaintop removal mining posted at YouTube as of 3.28.07.There are also other videos on Appalachia and MTR posted at www.ilovemountains.org.
GOD’S GIFT OF A WILD AND WONDERFUL LAND
2007 18 mins. Patchwork Films Using stunning photography and beautiful religious music, the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia is presented as a wilderness area that must be preserved for future generations. It is over 900,000 acres in size, located in 10 different counties. Facts about the forest and Biblical links are emphasized along with the appreciation of God’s creation. Viewers are encouraged to contact national and state legislators in support of protecting WV wilderness areas forever. Access – Patchwork Films at http://www.patchworkfilms.com/godsgift.htm. IN MEMORY OF THE LAND AND PEOPLE 1977 (2007) 55 mins. Omni Productions Robert Gates, a former chemical/computer engineer at Union Carbide, in Charleston, WV, using his own funds, traveled throughout West Virginia, Appalachia, and the country, filming the effects of stripmining coal. The film has no narration, only the voices of people whose land and lives have been devastated by stripmining coal. The music played is Bartok. The film was shown in Congress and helped motivate national legislation regulation stripmining. It has won many awards and has been shown all over the U.S. Gates was president of the WV Filmmakers Guild for many years and received the WVIFF Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985. He has produced two films on the effects of mountaintop removal mining – “All Shaken Up” and “Mucked.” Access: You can purchase a DVD from - Omni Productions,
, 304-342-2624, omni@ntelos.net. The price - $25 for personal use only, $50 for non-profit organizations, $150 for funded institutions, and $ 100 for project sponsors. Frog Creek Books also sells it.
The Electricity Fairy25 mins. 2007 Appalshop Tom Hansell is best known for his powerful film about overweight coal trucks in eastern
Box 5130 Charleston, WV
25361
Kentucky, “Coal Bucket Outlaw.” His new film is about West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky as exporters of both coal and electricity. Exploitation of natural resources for power generation makes the impact of the nation’s electricity consumption highly visible in these three states. The film combines present day documentary footage with old educational films and an animated folk tale to reveal the hidden costs of
America’s major source of electricity. Access: Appalshop at http://www.appalshop.org/electricityfairy/
