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USA, , 93 Min, Color
MIDWEST PREMIERE
Director: Marc BrodzikWebsite: http://info@anthracitemovie.com
FILMMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE |
Every morning before dawn, sixty-five rugged men lower themselves into steep, narrow, mountain tunnels 2,000 feet below the earth’s surface. Soot-covered and deeply lined, these men blast and dig vertically, rather than horizontally, for anthracite, a clean-burning coal that could play a crucial role in energy conservation. These workers, doing what their fathers and grandfathers before them did, spend more than 12 hours a day in near total blackness and in virtual silence, except for the occasional nerve-wracking thunder of dynamite.
During the anthracite boom of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the industry employed 180,000 miners. Today, only 12 independent mining families still exist. These families are considered bootleg miners and wage a modern David and Goliath battle against a government that is trying to strip any profit these miners might realize by, for example, requiring that two dollars in disability insurance be paid for every dollar a miner earns.
Filmed on location in the rickety mines, this film contains fascinating interviews with politicians, scientists and workers that give us a peek into the possible reasons why these unfortunate American miners are being allowed to be pushed out by unions and big business just as government leaders are pouring money into the development of technology to produce alternate fuel sources.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Marc earned a bachelor's degree in advertising from the Art Institute of Philadelphia. Dissatisfaction with the work that resulted propelled Marc into the realm of social and political commentary. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships (including a high-profile fellowship at the prestigious McDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire), Marc is currently working on his most ambitious documentary to date - a 360 degree view of the history of anthracite coal mining in Eastern Pennsylvania and the current struggle between big business, the federal government and the last of the anthracite coal miners.
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USA, 5 Min, Color (www.foodchain.com/lusk )
Director: Vance Malone
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This is a story of Lusk, Wyoming -the least populated county in the least populated state.
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