Nancy Gerstman, the co-president of Zeitgeist Films, sent me a preview copy of their new film which has received rave reviews and won many honors. Some have compared it to the recent hit film, “The Tale of the Weeping Camel” which I saw in Minneapolis. This film could be called “The Tale of the Pregnant Sheep.” The film was shot in Kazakhstan, on a treeless steppe with people living in yurts - like the people of Mongolia live in. Read the rest of this entry »

 Photo of Harry Powers used in Stan Bumgardner’s Goldenseal article

Bob Wilkinson, director of “Shades of Gray,” the award-winning  2008 feature documentary about Clarksburg’s UFO pioneer Gray Barker, is working on “Romeo Must Hang,”  (new website with link to trailer)  a new film about another famous person from Clarksburg, Harry Powers. He was famous as one of America’s first serial killers and the basis for Davis Grubb’s landmark book/film, “The Night of the Hunter.”(1955)

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Marquee of The La Belle Theater, photo by Joe Hodges, filmmaker

The South Charleston Museum will be presenting two films by Joe Hodges about the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company and the Owens-Illinois Glass Company on Saturday, June 13th, at 7 PM. There will be a 15-minute reception for LOF retirees with films to start at 7:15 PM.  SCM will be using this event to promote awareness of the once thriving glass industry in the Kanawha Valley and the future exhibit about the Belgian glass factories that once existed in South Charleston. Admission will be $ 4. Filmmaker and LOF retiree Joe Hodges will introduce the films.

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Elaine Purkey before she sings for the world premiere of Kelley Thompson’s film on WV labor great, William C. Blizzard, the son of Battle of Blair Mountain “general” Bill Blizzard and author of “When Miners March”

Elaine Purkey has been an activist singer/songwriter for more than 20 years. On June 21, Father’s Day, at the SFSU McKenna Auditorium in the Creative Arts Building, she  will join her fellow WV activist/singer Hazel Dickens and Mike Seeger,the brother of Pete Seeger, at the memorial service for one of the greatest promoters of labor culture, Archie Green.Elaine has been practicing a lot, and doing research including reading Green’s greatest book, “Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs.”West Virginia should be proud that two of the three singers at Mr. Green’s Memorial will be from our beloved state.

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This information comes from the Facebook website for the WV Filmmakers Guild.

Photos and story about last year’s 25th anniversary meeting of the WV Filmmakers Guild.

SUTTON – State filmmaking takes center stage on June 5 – 7, 2009 when the West Virginia Filmmakers Guild (WVFG) invites media professionals, enthusiasts, students, performers, and anyone with an interest in film and media to the annual workshops held at the beautifully-restored Landmark Studio for the Arts at 401 Main St., Sutton. On Saturday, June 6, this year’s workshops and presentations will include: Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Carpenter, the president of the Sutton-based WV Filmmakers Festival, has e-mailed me and others his press release concerning entries for the 2009 festival. In early spring 2001, Carpenter and his friends in Sutton at the Landmark Studio for the Arts created the only film festival dedicated to our state’s filmmakers. Since then many of the best films made by WV’s filmmakers or about WV have been shown. Just last year, David Novack’s multiple award-winning film, “Burning the Future - Coal in America, “ was chosen as “best film.”(20  Other films to win were chosen as “best feature documentary” in the past include WV filmmaker Terry Lively’s “Crossings - Bridge Building in WV,” (2006) and  Wayne Ewing’s “The Last Campaign”(2005) about Warren McGraw’s failed re-election campaign to the WV Supreme Court.

 See Ray Schmitt’s YouTube trailer promoting 2009 WVFF.

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 Few people in West Virginia know the man who directed the most important film ever made about the state but almost everyone knows the name of the film, “West Virginia - A Film History.” This is most unfortunate because Mark Samels, the writer, producer and director of the four-part series, has become one of the leaders of documentary filmmaking in the world. Few people know that a man who came to WV in 1985 to work at Morgantown WVPBS, spending 11 years here, producing two landmark earlier series, received the work experience he would need to lead the most watched history series on American television, The American Experience. Hopefully, with the release of the DVD version of “West Virginia - A Film History,” more West Virginians and people around the country and world will know about the amazing filmmaker, Mark Samels. Read the rest of this entry »

John Nakashima, Chip Hitchcock and Tom Nicholson directed three different films about West Virginia that were packaged as “Mountaineer Circles.” The three films are - “Mountaineer,” “Farmer” and “Gilligan’s Appalachia.” The WV Humanities Council produced these films at the same time that they released the VHS of “West Virginia - A Film History” in 1995. Like “WV,” a classroom version was sent on VHS to every public library and school in the state. I wish someone would broadcast these films again, and release them on DVD.

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There will be a public preview of Brittany Huckabee’s film, “The Mosque in Morgantown,” on June 10th, 7 PM, at the Metropolitan Theater in Morgantown. The film will be broadcast by PBS five days latter nationally. Ms. Huckabee will introduce the film. Maryanne Reed, dean of the WVU School of Journalism, will moderate an interfaith panel discussion on issues facing local religious communities afterwards. I reviewed the film and found it to be very wellmade. Hopefully, everyone in WV will get to see the award-winning film.

The classroom edition of “West Virginia - A Film History”

WVPBS has announced in its Pubcaster June 2009 magazine that it will be broadcasting the four-parts of WV’s own monumental film history, “West Virginia - A Film History” starting on Sunday, May 31 at 8 PM, continuing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The WV Humanities Council will be releasing the DVD finally on June 20th, WV Day. The cost is $29.95 plus $3 shipping, available from them and  in retail stores. (304) 346-8500.
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