A film by Robert C. Van Camp And Andy Lockett
A documentary covering the planning, construction, and legacy of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
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Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.
Documentary profiling an Appalachian farming family struggling to scrape out a living. Linking education and economic development, The Children Must Learn suggests that better schooling, especially in agricultural techniques, would bring improvement.
A documentary that examines the cultural stereotype of the people of Appalachia and how that has affected America's relationship with its rural communities.
The cultural roots of coal continue to permeate the rituals of daily life in Appalachia even as its economic power wanes. The journey of a coal miner’s daughter exploring the region’s dreams and myths, untangling the pain and beauty, as her community sits on the brink of massive change.
This film takes us into the harsh realm of BC's early coal mines, canneries, and lumber camps; where primitve conditions and speed-ups often cost lives. Then, the film moves through the unemployed' struggles of the '30s, post WWII equity campaigns, and into more recent public sector strikes over union rights.
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
A film documenting work shortages during the Depression of the 1930s and the attempts to deal with the unemployed, in particular young men. The film discusses the establishment of relief camps and projects, where men were paid twenty cents per day; the founding of organizations such as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Workers' Unity League, and Relief Camp Workers' Union; general unionization and protest of the unemployed, including the On To Ottawa Trek, Regina Riot, sit-in strike from May to June 1938 at the Vancouver Main Post Office, Vancouver Art Gallery and Hotel Georgia, and the resulting Bloody Sunday of June 19.
Chronicles the 50-year career of singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie, from Viper, Kentucky to the New York stage. Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and her family and friends in Eastern Kentucky are among those interviewed. A 1996 KET production.
January, 1947. The public receives the news of Al Capone's death with indifference, although twenty years earlier he had ruled Chicago's crime underworld with brute force and corrupting many touchable individuals. Until the day the head of the Untouchables Brigade, Eliot Ness, entered the scene. Since then, a cruel battle between the two of them began, a battle that ended in trial, conviction, disease, insanity and death.
Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.
A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.
Mountain dialect, culture and identity are revealed by the true experts on Southern Appalachian culture--the people whose families have lived there for generations.
You Gave Me A Song offers an intimate portrait of old-time music pioneer Alice Gerrard and her remarkable, unpredictable journey creating and preserving traditional music. The film follows eighty-four year old Gerrard over several years, weaving together verité footage of living room rehearsals, recording sessions, songwriting, archival work, and performances with photos and rare field recordings. Much of the film is told in Alice’s voice and via interviews with musical collaborators and family members who share the story of Alice and others chasing that high lonesome sound.
In the grip of the Great Depression, unemployed men and women joined an unlikely WPA program to document America in guidebooks and interviews. With the Federal Writers' Project, the government pitted young, untested talents against the problems of everyday Americans. From that experience, some of America's great writers found their own voices, and discovered the Soul of a People. — Spark Media
This documentary follows the lives of the Bowling family as they fight to survive in dirt-poor Appalachia. Matriarch Iree has given birth to 13 children, but only two have left to seek better lives in Ohio while the rest have married and started their own impoverished families near home. Uneducated and unskilled, all are unemployed, and domestic violence and alcoholism pose serious problems. The filmmakers explore the family's relationships through interviews and footage of their daily lives.
Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.
Black and white evokes nostalgia for The Great Depression. Things were so cheap, including lives. We see daredevils (desperate people) compete for money prizes. Baby prepares for WW2. [Originally a 70mm projection-performance, 1982, by Ken and Flo Jacobs. From THRILLS AND CHILLS (Castle Films, c. 1930)].
In 1967 Canadian filmmaker Hugh O'Connor came with a crew to eastern Kentucky to make a film showing people from all walks of life in the United States. They finished the day by filming coal miners and their families in rental houses. As the filmmakers were leaving, Hobart Ison, the owner of the property, drove up and fired three shots, killing Hugh O'Connor. Elizabeth Barrett, from Kentucky herself, explores why this happened by trying to understand the people and culture of eastern Kentucky.
Revisit photographs created by Kentucky school children in the 1970s and the place where their photos were made. Photographer and artist Wendy Ewald, who guided the students in making their visionary photographs, returns to Kentucky and learns how the lives and visions of her former students have changed.
In July of 2019 the Blackjewel coal company announced it was declaring bankruptcy. Miners were told to stop working mid shift, and their last paychecks bounced. The miners retaliated by blocking a train full of coal, camping out on the coal tracks for weeks. Queer regional organizers made their way to the encampment to support the miners. The encampment became a place for community gathering and mutual aid distribution. Sarah Moyer, a film maker living in Kentucky, also made their way to the encampment and filmed this short documentary on the blockade. (Summary from Queer Appalachia)
