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Tag Archives: Mining

Company Town (1983)

21 Feb

25m; U.S.

Director: Jim Rutenbeck

Synopsis: Jim Rutenbeck began his professional career with this film. He now edits many of The American Experience films produced by WGBH-TV, shown nationally on PBS. His award-winning film, Raise the Dead, ends in War, McDowell County, West Virginia. The town of Widen, West Virginia (Clay County) was once a thriving coal mining community. Using interviews, photographs and old film footage, this film recounts the history of Widen and its paternal ruler, coal baron Joseph Gardner Bradley, 1882-1971. It is still considered to be one of the best film portraits of an Appalachian company coal town.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary

 

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The Corn is Green (1945)

21 Feb

115m; U.S.

Director: Irving Rapper

Cast: Bette Davis, John Dall, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Schoolteacher Lilly Moffat is dismayed by conditions in a Welsh mining town. She sets up a school to teach fundamental education to the villagers. Her housekeeper and daughter oppose the project, as does the local Squire who will not rent her space. Using part of her own home, she goes ahead with Miss Moffat’s School. One of her students Morgan Evans turns from bully to brilliant student.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Children, Drama, Public Sector, Women, Working Class

 

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The Corn is Green (1979)

21 Feb

94m; U.S.

Director: George Cuckor

Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ian Saynor and Bill Fraser

Synopsis: A strong-willed teacher, determined to educate the poor and illiterate youth of an impoverished Welsh village, discovers one student whom she believes to have the seeds of genius in him.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Children, Drama, Public Sector, Women, Working Class

 

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The Courage of the People (El Coraje del Pueblo) [1971]

21 Feb

90m; Bolivia

Director: Jorge Sanjinés

Synopsis: Dramatic reconstruction of 1967 massacre of striking Bolivian tin miners.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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The Cry of the People (Al Grito de este Pueblo) [1972]

21 Feb

65m; Bolivia

Director: Humberto Rios

Synopsis: A political history of Bolivia which shows the working conditions of the miners.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, Politics, Working Class

 

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Digging Deep: The Cost of Cheap Energy (1998)

21 Feb

25m; U.S.

Synopsis: Ted Koppel hosts a look at the impact of the automation of the coalfields, the most important development in mining coal in West Virginia since the 1950’s. Chief reporter Barry Serafin and others visit various mine sites in West Virginia and talk to residents as well as mine operators who have been affected by the huge machines now used in the largest mines east of the Mississippi River.

Contact: WVLC

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Environment

 

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Disaster Chronicles – Mine Disaster (1991)

21 Feb

 

Cast: Ken Hechler, J. Davitt McAteer, Ben Franklken

Synopsis: 78 miners lost their lives in one of the worst mine disasters in U.S. history, the Farmington, WV. Mine Disaster on Nov. 20, 1968. This documentary investigates the causes and effects of the disaster. Former U.S. Congressman Ken Hechler is one of the people interviewed since he lead the battle in Congress to change federal mine safety regulations. Also interviewed are J. Davitt McAteer of Shepherdstown, the head of the Occupational Health and Safety Center. Ben Franklin, a former New York Times correspondent who covered the disaster, provides some critical assessment. This was a watershed event led Congress to create a tough new mine safety law limiting the amount of coal dust produced in mines for the first time in U.S. history. The new legislation also compensated miners with black lung disease.

Contact: A & E

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health

 

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Down in Number 5 (2010)

21 Feb

18m; U.S.

Director: Kim Spurlock

Synopsis: Down in Number 5 is the story Carl Short, a terminally ill coal miner, who seeks refuge for his developmentally disabled son Sammy. Carl suffers from black lung, and when money from a class action lawsuit fails to materialize, he realizes his options are running out. Who will take care of Sammy after he is gone? Carl turns to Raymond Atkins, Sammy’s childhood friend and protector. But Raymond is now a middle-aged, single father overwhelmed by his own problems. Rooted in the Southern Gothic storytelling tradition, Down in Number 5 is a tender portrait of a man pushed to his limits for the love of his son and a haunting rumination on family and community in Appalachia. Based on a true story.

Contact: http://www.downinnumber5.com

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Safety & Health

 

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End of the Rainbow (2007)

21 Feb

52m or 83m; 

Director: Robert Nugent

Synopsis: End of the Rainbow provides a concise, in-depth look at the impact of global extractive industries on local populations, their economy, their traditions and their environment. It depicts in striking details the confrontation of two cultures, one indigenous the other a unique reflection of the age of globalization. The film uses a gold mine in Guinea to explore whether concessions granted to transnational corporations are in the interest of the companies, the governing elite or the local community.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Politics

 

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Enthusiasm (1931)

21 Feb

67m

Director: Dziga Vertov

Synopsis (WorldCat): Dziga Vertov’s first sound film, a documentary on the coal miners of the Don Basin, is notable for its experiemental use of sound montages, organized by Vertov with an attention equal to his complex segmented visuals, so that each element possesses both autonomy and a contrapuntal, denotational relation to the other.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary

 

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