NC film on Mountaintop Removal Mining wins top award in Charlotte
Sign for AV section at Charlotte Public Library
Samuel Shapiro, manager of the popular library at the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, e-mailed me this morning that a film about West Virginia, “Mountain Top Removal” won the best documentary award at the opening Charlotte Film Festival. Sam is the leading expert on film in the Charlotte area, setting up two of the four venues for the film festival at his library. He teaches film courses at the local college, programs film events all year at the library, and even worked for a friend of mine, Bill Sloan, at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
I have been trying to get Sam to show a series of films about WV in Charlotte since so many people from WV have moved there….Thanks Sam for letting me know. As far as I know, this particular film on MTR has NOT been shown in WV. I have seen it - and I included a short description of it in my annual list of new films on WV for Goldenseal magazine which was published last Friday. Here is my expanded description and review that is posted on the Haw River homepage for the film -
Mountain Top 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, thenatives 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 TimesSunday magazine and then “Big Coal,” Dr. Ben Stout, a Ph.D. from Wheeling Jesuit University, Dr. Schiffin from Williamson, a MD who caresfor 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 the
children 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 visitedCharleston.) 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.
To visit a list of films on MTR –
http://www.ohvec.org/links/mountaintop_removal/documentaries.html
OVEC website on Memorial Day on Kayford Mountain 2006 (shown in this film)-
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/people_in_action/2006/05_29/index.html
