Paden City Public Library director Sharon Kastigar and Eagles president Jesse King showing programs for earlier Paden City Labor Film Festivals

The Paden City Fraternal Order of the Eagles along with the Paden City Public Library will be sponsoring its fourth annual Labor Day Film Festival on Labor Day weekend at the Club, across the street from the Paden City Public Library.  The festival is officially endorsed by the board of the West Virginia Labor History Association. It is now listed by the DC Labor Film Fest along with other labor film fests around the country and world.

Peter Argentine, the director of “Monongah Remembers,” will be present to introduce his film, “Monongah Remembered.”  Mr. Argentine is hoping to expand the film to 55 minutes, including some of the other footage he has already shot.

The film program  will start with  “Monongah Remembered.” It is a new film about the Monongah 1907 Disaster, made by Pittsburgh filmmaker Peter Argentine, who traveled back to Italy to interview relatives of the many Italian immigrant miners who died.  The second film will be  Kelley Thompson’s “The Widen Project, “a brand-new film about the 1952 Widen Strike in Clay County, WV which has been ignored in WV history for more than 50 years. The third film, “Mother Jones – the Most Dangerous Woman in America” is the first and only film made to date about Mother Jones. (The WV premiere of the Mother Jones film took place immediately after the world premiere of “The Widen Project” in May 2008 at The La Belle Theater in South Charleston, co-sponsored by the South Charleston Museum and WV Labor History Assn.) The last film, “Experience Fenton,” is a historical film about Fenton Glass located in Williamstown, Wood County, WV. The film emphasizes the positive working relationship between the Fenton family and the workers who actually have produced the world-class art glass for over a century. 

  This year films will only be shown on Labor Day - Monday, September 1. 

  Film Descriptions - 

MONONGAH REMEMBERED

2008                  30 mins. Peter Argentine Productions Inc. 
Pittsburgh filmmaker Peter Argentine directed this film about the greatest loss of life as the result of a coal mine disaster in American history.  On  December 6, 1907, the Monongah Mine Disaster took place in the small Harrison County town outside
Fairmont. He includes information about a visit by two Italian delegations from two regions in Italy, Calabria and Molise, where many of the miners who were killed grew up. Argentine is trying to raise funds to expand the film to an hour. If you are interested, visit his website at - www.argentineproductions.com. Website for the film - http://www.monongahmovie.com/ Access for DVD: Website. 

 WIDEN FILM PROJECT

2008     55 mins.    Killer Productions 
Charleston filmmaker Kelley Thompson was hired in 2006 by the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone to interview Clay Countians, filming their memories. He found that many recalled life in Widen, the famous company town built by J.G. Bradley who was a national and state coal mining leader. He also learned about the 1952 U.M.W.A. strike at Widen. He interviewed William C. Blizzard, son of the union leader Bill Blizzard, Gordon Simmons, president of the WV Labor History Assn. and others about the strike. (Julia Baker wrote “Up Molasses Mountain” based on her father’s memories of the time.) The film covers other areas including the Buffalo Creek & Gauley Railroad, and sports history with legendary coach Bobby Stover.  The world premiere of the film took place at The South Charleston Museum May 10 @ 7 PM co-sponsored by SCM and the WV Labor History Association. Access – Kelley Thompson, killer64@suddenlink.net, 304-344-1990 (home) 

MOTHER JONES – THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN IN
AMERICA

2007    23 mins.  Mother Jones MuseumRosemary Feurer and Laura Vazquez, two professors at Northern Illinois  University, directed this first complete film about one of
America’s greatest leaders. The 23 minute film includes the only film footage of her, speaking on her “100th birthday.” Elliot Gorn, author of the definitive biography on Mother Jones, “Mother Jones—The Most Dangerous Woman in
America,” talks about her amazing life. The West Virginia Labor History Assn. inducted her into its WV Labor Hall of Honor in 1980, only second to native son Walter Reuther. She was active in West Virginia, being arrested several times. The film won First Placein the Documentary Division at the Geneva Cultural Arts Commission Film Festival.    Access - http://motherjonesmuseum.org/ 

EXPERIENCE FENTON

2000?    28 min.   The Fenton Art Glass Company was founded in 1905. It has been producing the world’s most beautiful handmade glass products ever since. This film traces its history and shows how many of the amazing products are made. It emphasizes the importance of the relationship between the Fenton management and the glass workers who produce the products. The company almost closed in 2007, but a surge of purchases brought the company back to life and it continues to thrive. More information at - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton_glass.Fenton website - http://www.fentonartglass.com/Access to this film:  Fenton Glass website, http://www.fentonartglass.com/shop/item.asp?item=FG141/
 

About the Paden City Labor Day Film Festival

Paden City was one of the leading glass towns of the Ohio Valley for decades.   The Marble King factory still produces a million glass marbles a day. http://www.marblekingusa.com/. 

The first Labor Day parade in 1882 founded by Knights of Labor

Paden City was part of the early history of labor unions in the state. In 1877, the Knights of Labor formed the first state district assembly in Paden City. It was the same year as the first national strike that began in Martinsburg, WV, striking railroads across the country. The Knights of Labor held their first Labor Day Parade in New York City in 1882.  For decades thousands of union members converged on Paden City to celebrate Labor Day, ranking with the  UMWA Labor Day picnic in Racine, southern
West Virginia. During the last few years Attorney General Darrell McGraw Jr. has visited the Paden City Labor Day Parade and Labor Film Festival.

  H. John Rogers and  Carolyn LeMaster co-founded the Paden City Labor Film Festival in 2005. 2008 will be the fourth year of the labor film festival. Jesse King, leader of the Eagles Club in Paden City and Sharon Kastigar, director of the Paden City Public Library, presented the labor film festival in 2007 and now 2008.  In 2007 the Paden City Labor Film Festival presented three days of labor films, starting with Terry Lively, president of The WV Filmmakers Guild, who screened “A New Beginning,” her new short documentary on the UE Union. TV commercials produced by the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation (ACT) were shown along with leading Appalachian filmmaker Mimi Pickering’s “Pulp Fiction, Poison Promises,” about the proposed pulp mill plant to be build in Apple Grove, WV.  Other films included Shawn Bennett’s landmark film on the Ravenswood Aluminum Lock-Out, “The Battle of 5668” and Luis Argeo’s film, “AsturianUS,” about the Spanish workers who left northern Spain to work in WV’s zinc plant in Spelter, WV and coal mines. Karen Vuranch personally introduced her new film, “Coal Camp Memories, “ a filmed version of her popular one-woman play about growing up in a WV coal camp.   The second film festival in 2006 screened four days of films included the restored DVD of Oscar-winning “Harlan County, USA,” Wayne Ewing’s award-winning feature documentary on Warren and Darrell McGraw, “The Last Campaign,” and Anna Sale’s WVPBS documentary on Don Blankenship, “Kingmaker.” “Sit Down and Fight,” a PBS documentary on Wheeling native son Walter Reuther was also screened.   In 2008 the labor film festival will run only one day – Labor Day,  Monday, September 1. Leading Pittsburgh documentary filmmaker Peter Argentine, who has traveled the world directing films including one about The White House, will travel to Paden City to present his new film, “Monongah Remembered.” The other films to be shown are – “Widen Film Project,” about a “lost” 1952 coal strike in Widen, Clay County, WV, “Mother Jones – The Most Dangerous Woman Alive,” which is the only film about the most famous labor organizer in American history, and finally “”Experience Fenton,” a company documentary about one of WV’s few remaining glass companies.   Scenes from WV’s greatest film, “The Night of the Hunter,”(1955) were filmed nearPaden City in 1954. http://www.wvculture.org/history/entertainment/nightofthehunter.htmlOne of Gloria Swanson’s most popular films, “Stage Struck”(1921) was also filmed near Paden City.  The labor film festival, the only one of its kind in the state of West Virginia and one of the few anywhere in the United States, continues to promote awareness of the history of West Virginia’s working women and men. The West Virginia Labor History Association, a statewide organization of experts on labor history, has officially endorsed the unique labor film festival.

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