To celebrate Appalshop’s 40th Anniversary, the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center will host a monthly Friday film series during the 2009-2010 academic year titled “Appalshop@40.” Each film will be screened in the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center Gallery and followed by an artist talk.   All films will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States. Founded in 1969 as a project of the United States government's War on Poverty, Appalshop established itself as the primary hub of filmmaking in and about Appalachia, and since that time has produced more than one hundred films, covering such subjects as coal mining, the environment, traditional culture, and the economy. Appalshop also produces theater, music, and spoken-word recordings, as well as photography, multimedia, and books.

Appalshop productions and services reach several million people nationally and internationally each year.

Screening Schedule:

Friday, Sept. 25 – Up the Ridge, directed by Amelia Kirby and Nick Szuberla, 60 min. (2008)
Friday, Oct. 23 – Stranger with a Camera, directed by Elizabeth Barret, 60 min. (2000)
Friday, Nov. 20 – Hazel Dickens, directed by Mimi Pickering, 60 min. (2001)
Friday, Dec. 4 – Long Journey Home, directed by Elizabeth Barret, 60 min. (1987)
Friday, Jan. 22 – Sludge, directed by Robert Salyer, 45 min. (2006)
Friday, Feb. 19 – Strangers and Kin, directed by Herb E. Smith, 60 min. (1984)
Friday, Mar. 5 – The Electricity Fairy, directed by Tom Hansell, 60 min. (2008)
Friday, Apr. 23 – To Save the Land & the People, directed by Anne Lewis, 58 min. (1999)
Friday, May 7 – From Wood to Singing Guitar, directed by Shawn Lind (2009)

Film Synopses:

Up The Ridge: Directed by Amelia Kirby and Nick Szuberla, 60 min. (2008)

A documentary film about urban prisoners in isolated rural prisons.
Wise County, Virginia 1999: Wallens Ridge State Prison. A struggling rural coal-mining community fights for economic survival by building two super-maximum security prisons to house the state’s prisoners. Within a few months reports of human rights violations and cultural tension begin surfacing. Prisoners from urban Virginia, as well as Connecticut, New Mexico, and Washington D.C. in a state run beds for hire program, are transferred to rural Appalachia where former coalminers are now correction officers. The stakes were raised when Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report of abuse and racism in the prisons. The prisoners, prisoner families, and correction officers find themselves in a vortex of cultural and political conflict.

Stranger with a Camera: Directed by Elizabeth Barret, 60 min. (2000)

In 1967 Canadian filmmaker Hugh O'Connor visited the mountains of Central Appalachia to document poverty. A local landlord, who resented the presence of filmmakers on his property, shot and killed O'Connor, in part because of his anger over the media images of Appalachia that had become icons in the nation's War on Poverty.
Filmmaker Elizabeth Barret, a native of Appalachia, uses O'Connor's death as a lens to explore the complex relationship between those who make films to promote social change and the people whose lives are represented in such media productions. Through first-person accounts of the killing and the perspective of three decades of reflection, Stranger with a Camera leads viewers on a quest for understanding—a quest that ultimately leads Barret to examine her own role as both a maker of media and a member of the Appalachian community she portrays.

Hazel Dickens: Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song: Directed by Mimi Pickering, 60 min. (2001)

From the coalfields of West Virginia to the factories of Baltimore, Hazel Dickens has lived the songs she sings. A pioneering woman in Bluegrass and hardcore country music, Hazel has influenced generations of songwriters and musicians. Her songs of hard work, hard times, and hardy souls have bolstered working people at picket lines and union rallies throughout the land. In this intimate portrait, interviews with Hazel and fellow musicians such as Alison Krauss, Naomi Judd, and Dudley Connell are interwoven with archival footage, recent performances, and 16 powerful songs including “Mama’s Hand,” “ Working Girl Blues,” and “Black Lung.”
Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song profiles a "modern" woman dealing with contemporary issues from a feminist perspective, which has evolved from her own experiences: being Appalachian, being displaced physically and culturally, being poor and working class, being a woman artist in a man's world, and being a bearer of tradition.

Long Journey Home: Directed by Elizabeth Barret, 60 min. (1987)

Long Journey Home explores the ethnic diversity of the Appalachian region, the economic forces causing people to migrate into and out of the area, and the choices individuals make to stay, to leave, and to come back. European immigrants recall the ethnic variety that existed in Appalachia during the first coal boom of the 1910s and 1920s. African-Americans whose families left sharecropping in the South to build the railroads and work in the mines talk about the transition to life in the coal camps, and their later dispersal across the country as automation took their jobs.
Eventually, 3.3 million people left the region in search of work. Members of these families, people with deep roots in the mountains, talk about riding the “hillbilly highway” on weekends and holidays and struggle to find a way to move back home and make a living. This film contemplates the past and future of the American economy and the toll capitalism takes on individuals, families, and communities.

Sludge: Directed by Robert Salyer, 45 min. (2006)

Shortly after midnight on October 11, 2000, a coal sludge pond in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River into the Big Sandy. The Martin County sludge spill killed all aquatic life along 30 miles of river, damaged municipal water systems, and caused millions of dollars in property damage.
Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer follows the government agencies and community members through their cleanup efforts and their attempts to understand the causes of a disaster thirty times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Filmed over four years, the documentary chronicles the aftermath of the disaster, the Mine Safety and Health Administration “whistleblower” case of Jack Spadaro, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the Appalachian mountains.

Strangers and Kin: A History of the Hillbilly Image: Directed by Herb E. Smith, 60 min. (1984)

Using funny, often poignant examples, Strangers and Kin shows the development and effect of stereotypes as technological change collides with tradition in the Southern mountains. The film traces the evolution of the "hillbilly" image through Hollywood films, network news and entertainment shows, dramatic renderings of popular literature, and interviews with contemporary Appalachians to demonstrate how stereotypes are created, reinforced, and often used to rationalize exploitation. The film suggests how a people can embrace modernity without becoming "strangers to their kin."

The Electricity Fairy: Directed by Tom Hansell, 60 min. (2008)

“They reach out and flip the switch and the light comes on.  Well, there’s not a magic electricity fairy.  That electricity comes from a power plant that feeds on coal.”
-  Eugene Mooney, former head of the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources

Coal produces half of America’s electricity, according to the Federal Department of Energy.  The energy policy currently before Congress identifies coal as a key to America’s "energy independence.”  The Electricity Fairy is a documentary that examines America's national addiction to fossil fuels through the lens of electricity.  Appalshop Filmmaker Tom Hansell follows the story of a proposed coal-fired power plant in the mountains of southwest Virginia, connecting the local controversy to the national debate over energy policy. 

To Save the Land & the People: Directed by Anne Lewis, 58 min. (1999)

Strip or “surface” mining—where coal is blasted and scraped from the mountain surface—increased dramatically in the Appalachian region in 1961 when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) signed contracts to buy more than 16 million tons of strip-mined coal. Though cheaper for the buyer than deep mined coal, the damage done by strip mining was far reaching and had immediate impact on coalfield residents.

To Save the Land and People is a history of the early grassroots efforts to stop strip mining in eastern Kentucky, where “broad form” deeds, signed at the beginning of the 20th Century, were used by coal operators to destroy the surface land without permission or compensation of the surface owner. The program focuses on the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People, whose members used every means possible—from legal petitions and local ordinances, to guns and dynamite—to fight strip mining. The documentary makes a powerful statement about the land and how we use it, and how its misuse conflicts with local cultures and values.
The film tells the story of resistance in the voices of people who were directly involved and demonstrates the creativity and energy that indigenous and working class people bring to the environmental justice movement.