Recently the Appalachian Studies Association selected “Morristown” as the winner of the 2008 Jack Spadaro Award. Jack Wright at Ohio University is the administrator for the award. Congrats to Ms. Lewis and the ASA for honoring such a fine film.

Anne Lewis has finally completed “Morristown - In the air and sun,” another masterpiece about Appalachia from Appalshop.   The film took almost a decade to make, traveling from Mexico to Morristown, Tennessee, showing the amazing links between the people who are virtual slaves of a global economy. The rooted people of Tennessee are shown as victims of the toxic capitalist system as much as the rootless workers from Mexico, forced to flee rather than starve. It is a touching, exciting, relevant film.

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Huntington-based Appalachian Film Festival will be opening on Thursday, April 17th at the Keith-Albee Theater. The main event on Thursday night will be Francesca Karle’s second film, “Back to the Bottle.” “Crash Gordon,” an interesting feature film by Williamson filmmaker Bill Richardson, will be shown on Saturday afternoon at 3 PM.

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 Ray Schmitt and family will be interning Judy and her mother’s ashes together this weekend. I send my best wishes and look forward to working with Ray on his many future film projects. (more…)

The Sierra Club has been promoting media for many years. Now they have they own Energy Film Festival. If you visit the site, you will find many of WV’s own recent films including Mari-Lynn Evan’s “The Appalachians” and films by B.J. Gudmundsson and even David Novak’s “Burning the Future.”

Check out the great photo gallery posted. And read Dave Lavender’s excellent story about Ken, Dr. Winters, and the making of “Ken Hechler- In Pursuit of Justice.”