Documentaries inspire community engagement
By Lucy Jones
This month, in theaters, libraries, cafes, and museums throughout the country, people will be discussing Floyd County, Kentucky. What could catalyze people as far west as Seattle and as far east as Jamaica Plain to address, publicly and passionately, events that are happening right here in our own backyard?
The answer comes in the form of a groundbreaking series presented by the Independent Television Service. Each month, in 95 cities across the country, ITVS partners with local communities and PBS affiliates to screen films as part of the Community Cinema Series. This month’s featured screening is the acclaimed documentary Deep Down: A Story from the Heart of Coal Country, a film which addresses the social, environmental and economic complexities involved in the issue of mountaintop removal in Eastern Kentucky.
KET, in partnership with ITVS, will screen the film at the Central Branch of The Lexington Public Library on Thursday, November 18 at 6:00 P.M. The screening, like all Community Cinema Series screenings, is free and will be followed by a panel led discussion. A central component of Community Cinema’s mission is the desire to create a conversation among members of the various communities in which the films are screened.
As KET’s Sara O’Keefe explains, “Community Cinema gives folks a great way to start up dialogues about current world issues and problems that might be happening right here in their own community. Some of the films engage the audience through sharing inspiring personal stories of struggle. Other films give an audience a glimpse into an unfamiliar world in hopes that with more education and understanding we can move beyond our differences.”
While viewers in Connecticut and California may experience the events of Deep Down as those that occur in “an unfamiliar world,” the film has special resonance for those of us in Kentucky and falls into the camp of local community concern. Consequently, one could anticipate a lively discussion to follow the November 18 screening.
Deep Down is a thoughtful and engaging examination of the far-reaching impact of mining practices throughout Appalachia. It presents the story of two Floyd County land owners, Beverly May and Terry Ratliff, both of whom find themselves personally impacted by a proposed mountaintop removal coal operation. Beverly May is a committed crusader against the practice, who long ago decided that she would not put a price on the land whose protection she considers to be entrusted to her. Terry Ratliff understands the immediate environmental implications of the process, but also struggles with finances and is tempted by the coal company’s promise of lucrative potential earnings.
The film follows the struggles of both individuals, while also lending an ear to the concerns of other members within the community. When filming town meetings, the documentary gives equal time to the voices of preservationists as it does to the concerns of the coal miners who rely on the industry as the very basis of their survival. The result is a complex look at a problem for which there are no easy answers.
Deep Down will be the second film in the Community Cinema Series to be screened in Lexington. KET got involved with the project last year, when ITVS approached the station to host regional screenings. Louisville was the first Kentucky host city with screenings being held at Fern Creek High School in conjunction with the Louisville Film Society. KET brought the ITVS Women’s Empowerment Series to Lexington last summer, and it proved to be an amazing testing ground for the Community Cinema Series.
As Sara O’Keefe describes, “We screened a film every Thursday evening in August and accumulated quite a large audience by the end of the film series. The public response has been great. Many audience members that watch the films have lots of questions to ask our panelists. It just shows that people are excited to be watching these engaging films, talking and learning about issues that effect us right here in our own community.” O’Keefe hopes that the success of the Community Cinema Series in Louisville and Lexington will lead to its expansion within the state, ultimately resulting in the program’s implementation in Western and Eastern Kentucky.
For O’Keefe, one of the most rewarding aspects of the series is the sense of activism that the screenings engender. After showing Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai during the Women’s Empowerment Series, individuals within the community were moved to take action. The film told the story of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, the members of whom used tree planting as a means to start an environmental revolution.
As O’Keefe explains, “The film led to a great discussion of what we can do to plant more trees and community gardens in our own community and the impact such projects would have. Two of the film’s panelists–Patrick Angel, a forester with the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and Dave Cooper, the head of the Central Kentucky Sierra Club–signed up several of the audience members to plant trees on old abandoned strip mines in Eastern Kentucky this Spring. I feel like that is the purpose of these films—to inspire people in the audience to start thinking about how they can make a difference.”
Deep Down will be shown at 6 P.M. on Thursday, November 18, at the Central Branch of the Lexington Public Library. This season’s Community Cinema Series will continue through June. For a complete list of films and more information about ITVS’s mission, please visit http://www.ket.org/communitycinema/ and http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/getinvolved/
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