Dick Fauss in his office in The Cultural Center - the most interesting room in WV State government

Richard (Dick) Fauss has compiled about 45 minutes of the best footage I have ever seen from the WV State Archives. This compilation will be shown at The Paden City Eagles Club on Sunday, September 2, at 1 PM after Sherrill Shaw’s great film, “From Fire and Play - East Liverpool, Ohio - the First Hundred Years.  Ms. Shaw will personally introduce the film. After a break, the DVD of footage will be shown.

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WVPBS in support of the national airing of  “The War,” Ken Burns’ new series on WWII will be showing two great WV films about WWII. There will be interviews with various WV veterans of WWII shown. On Tuesday, Sept. 11th at 8 PM Russ Barbour’s two hour epic, “West Virginians at War” will be shown followed by Robert Whetsell’s “Cliff-Scaling Soldiers of WV.” Both were guests at The South Charleston Museum’s WV Film Series last year.

Paul Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He will be one of the many people interviewed in a future feature documentary by B.J. Gudmundsson about the Green Bank Radio Telescope. The film will have three parts - one on the National Science Camp, another on the people of Pocahontas County and how they relate to the Big Science workers and technology plunked down in their midst, and a part about the importance of the science being done at Green Bank.

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Gerald Milnes is the reigning 2006 WV Filmmaker of the Year - Ray Schmitt was the WV Filmmaker of the Year i n 2004. They are friends, working on “The Texture of Life-The Tusing Sisters of Branch Mountain” together. Recently both of them have released marvelous new films about two of our state’s thousands of first-class musicians, Junior Holstein and Wayne Stawderman. I recently watched the two films back to back, making a new program for an evening of film on these experienced artists.

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 Ray Schmitt with Morgan Spurlock at 2005 Sutton WV Filmmakers FF

Ray and Judy Schmitt have invested in some video projection equipment so they can show films at their farm in Mathias, Hardy County. They have been producing great films for decades, traveling around the state and region to show them. In July they opened up their own place so they can show their own films and others. In July they started by showing their two  newest Sutton films, “For the Love of Theater,” “Beautiful You” and a work in progress, “Open for Business.” (more…)

Denise Giardina and Rev. Jim Lewis should both have extensive documentary films made about them before it’s too late. I have talked with both of them about this matter. Rev. Lewis said that at one time someone from Hollywood wanted to make a film about him, but it fell through. I know that Denise has been interviewed for a hundred films and TV series including “The Appalachians.”

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WHY THE GREEKS MATTER 

                        By Christopher Xenepulos Janus 

            Scholars in most countries and languages have been writing about Greeks for 3,000 years.  Thomas Cahill, distinguished best-selling author, has written an excellent  book WHY THE GREEKS MATTER and I’ll be quoting him later on in this essay. (more…)

Jim Rutenbeck head shot

Jim Rutenbeck, (jrutenbeck@gmail.com) like Barbara Kopple and many other filmmakers, began his film career in West Virginia. He made “Company Town” in 1984 and the rest is history. (see below) He is presently working on a film about a working class Catholic church in Lawrence, Mass. with funds from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund.

 I have been showing “Company Town” around the state again - at the First Paden City Labor Day Film Festival, at the Sutton WV Filmmakers Film Festival and elsewhere. I even chose it as one of the “ten essential films about WV” on my WV/Appalachian film website. 

 Rutenbeck returned to WV years latter as part of another great film he made, “Raise the Dead.” The preacher he profiles ends up in War, McDowell County giving a sermon. The spring WVIFF screened the film several years ago.

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Jack Wright was one of the founders of Appalshop, working in both music and film. He made a visit to the South Charleston Museum’s Appalachian film series a while ago, playing music and showing his film on The Carter Family, “The Sunnyside of Life.” After several years of work, he has finally released his two-CD set of “The Music of Coal.” You can purchase it from the original source, The Lonesome Pine Office of Youth, or from Appalshop. Here is a WVPBS story on Wright and the music I heard recently.

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The Rural Routes Film Festival in NYC has been showing many great films made in West Virginia since it was founded in 2003, giving top awards to “Dental Farmer,” Mimi Pickering’s film on Hazel Dickens, “It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song,”(which premiered in WV at the Sutton WV Filmmakers Film Festival)  and other films. Unfortunately, some of WV’s best filmmakers like Ray Schmitt have had their world-class films rejected by the festival. This year they screened several films from the Appalshop archives including the 1975 film “Nimrod Workman - To Fit My Own Catagory,” which is about a musician/coal miner/activist who spent most of his life in WV.

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