Movie Documentary
The struggle by the inhabitants of Raleigh County, West Virginia, to preserve their land from the ravages of strip mining, and their efforts to pass state legislation to this end.
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Matewan
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Harlan County U.S.A.
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.
How Green Was My Valley
A man in his fifties reminisces about his childhood growing up in a Welsh mining village at the turn of the 20th century.
Margaret's Museum
In a town where half the men die down the coalpit, Margaret MacNeil is quite happy being single in her small Cape Breton island town. Until she meets Neil Currie, a charming and sincere bagpipe-playing, Gaelic-speaking dishwasher. But no matter what you do, you can't avoid the spectre of the pit forever.
Recovery Boys
In the heart of America's opioid epidemic, four men try to reinvent their lives and mend their broken relationships after years of drug abuse.
The Dion Brothers
Two rural West Virginia brothers leave home, rob an armored car and become fugitives.
Harlan County War
A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.
Fury Below
Jim Cole, heir to a mining operation, takes over the mine, which is suffering from unexplained low production, and is facing a strike by the miners. Jim will soon loose the mine if production doesn't increase and the sabotage continues. Mary Norsen, office-secretary, accidentally learns of a plot by Fred Johnson to wreck the mine and force Cole to sell his coal-mine. She and her brother, Joe, join Cole in his fight to stop Johnson.
West Virginia Stories
Three stories examining what it means to live, find connection, deal with trauma, and do more than just exist, in the rural landscape of small mining town in West Virginia.
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