Jack Spadaro in Audubon magazine

Several years ago Jack Wright and the Appalachian Studies Association created the Jack Spadaro Award to honor a film or other media that explores the Appalachian world in the spirit of WV native son Spadaro. They wrote,”The Jack Spadaro Documentary Award for Best Documentary on Appalachia. The award’s name honors the activist and whistleblower, Jack Spadaro, who has spent his entire professional career working within the coalmining industry for the betterment of the Appalachian community. The Spadaro Award is given annually by the Appalachian Studies Association for the best documentary on Appalachia. The award recognizes the producer for outstanding work in film, video, television, or radio.” Unfortunately, after several very good films have received the award, none was given last weekend at the ASA conference.

(more…)

This is  a still from the film showing a sign made in Lahore, Pakistan for a meeting of the Muhammad Asad Society meeting on Independence Day

A Road to Mecca: The Journey of Muhammad Asad is one of the most interesting films I have ever seen about the link between the Jewish world and Muslim universe. When I first heard of the film, I thought that it might be a comedy of some sort. I had never heard of Muhammad Asad. After watching the 92 minute feature documentary, I had a completely different attitude about a man who truly explored our global village in a way no one else before or since has done. I thought, “This man is like the Lawrence of Arabia of our age.” I love this film, and hopefully will be able to present it to the people of the Kanawha Valley where I live sometime soon.

(more…)

Ross Spears, founder of Agee Films, mailed me a review copy of his new four-part series called “Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People” that will air on WVPBS   on Monday, April13th at 9 PM and the following three Mondays also at 9 PM . (Also on Saturdays, April 18th at 4 PM.) I have been looking forward to seeing it for about a year now since it had a premiere at the Shepherdstown American Conservation Film Festival. (more…)

Miners turning in their weapons following the Battle of Blair Mountain 

 Still posted by WV State Archives - more on Battle of Blair Mountain

Google News alerts told me that there is a great new short documentary on The Battle of Blair Mountain. Be sure to check it out and watch some of the many other YouTube videos also posted.

Variety announced recently that Peter Horton, well-known actor/producer/director will be making a feature film version of the book, “Coal River”  (20 by Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson. Oscar winner Paul Haggis is producing through his company Hiway 61. Haggis won an Oscar for his “Crash”(2004) and most recently wrote the new James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace.” Joe Lovett and Judy Bonds are two of the “good guys” in the book.

Joyce Shaver, a screenwriter from Huntington, e-mailed me the schedule for the 2009 edition of the Appalachian Film Festival to be held in Huntington at the Keith-Albee Theater. Terry Lively, president of the WV Filmmakers Guild, told me earlier that for the first time the Guild will have a presence at the festival. The festival shows films made anywhere in Appalachia, not just core states like West Virginia.

(more…)

 Robert Gates will be presenting his new feature documentary about The WV Highlands Conservancy, “40 Years- The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy” on Saturday, March 28th at 4 PM as part of the annual Appalachian Studies Association Conference being held at Shawnee State College  in Portsmouth, Ohio. He just stopped in bringing copies for WVLC’s WV collection. Congrats to Mr. Gates. Read my review and photos of the film here. (more…)

Appalshop is one of the world’s greatest regional media organizations, if not the greatest. For more than 40 years, they have produced films, plays, recordings and more in the tiny Eastern Kentucky town of Whitesburg. I have been promoting them for 30 years, buying their films and videos for WVLC, programming their films at the WVIFF, Cultural Center, WV Filmakers Festival, the WV film series at The South Charleston Museum, and a lot more.

(more…)

Ken Hechler with Mimi Pickering at the January 2006 showing of her two films about The Buffalo Creek Disaster

Mimi Pickering is one of the oldest working members of Appalshop, Appalachia’s official media center, located in Whitesburg, Ky.  During the last three decades she has made many films including several about West Virginia, most notably two films about the Buffalo Creek Disaster- “The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man”(1975) and “Buffalo Creek Revisited”(1985). She also made a great biography of Bluefield native Hazel Dickens called “Hazel Dickens - It’s Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song” and the very important “Chemical Valley” (1991) about the connection between the Bhopal Disaster and the Kanawha Valley sister MIC plant at Institute. All four of these films are now available on DVD from Appalshop. In an essay about films about coal mining, I chose her Buffalo Creek films as the most important of all of the hundreds of films I have seen about coal mining that I have seen since I came to WV in 1978. (more…)

Young Freud in Gaza is a very touching new documentary about a psychologist working in the Gaza Strip from 2006-2008. Ayed, a young psychotherapist for the Palestinian Authority’s Clinic for Mental Health, is one of the most interesting films I have ever seen about a contemporary psychologist. It’s great to see how he visits patients in their homes, and how he has to help people who are under some of the most intense psychologist pressures in the world. Like he says, “Gaza needs a million psychologists.”

(more…)