Denise Giardina & Rev. Jim Lewis - we need films about them
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.”
With so many great filmmakers running around the mountains of the state, and in particular, the state’s only film school at West Virginia State University where Ms. Giardina teaches, why haven’t any of the many professors, any of the hundreds of film students, made films about these local saints?
I know both Rev. Lewis and Denise are very busy, writing, teaching, marching, living. But I also know that they are getting older and have already done so much.
As I have assisted Ken Hechler and Russ Barbour make the coming two-hour documentary about Ken to be called “Ken Hechler: In Search of Justice,” I have thought about others in the state who deserve films. Luckily, many of the anti-MTR people have Bob Gates and B.J. Gudmundsson to document them. ( See other stories on this blog about OVEC, Judy Bonds, who was recently on the Sundance Channel, and Larry Gibson, who has been profiled by Gudmundsson and even heralded on CNN.) Future generations of West Virginians and Appalachians need to know about the fine people who have spent their lives here, fighting for the people and justice.
I always think of the time I said to Dr. Grover Maxwell, a friend and professor of mine at The University of Minnesota, about how great it would have been to have lived when David Hume and Bishop Berkeley and Decartes were alive. He said, “Steve, we have great philosophers of our own - like Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend. They were as smart as anyone else before.” ( He became only the second director of the world’s first center for philosophy of science, founded by Herbert Feigl, friend to Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein.)
Giardina is one of the greatest politically active writers in our nation. Rev. Lewis is one of our greatest religious leaders in the style of MLK Jr. himself. We need great films about them.
