Short film about coal mining
A small town is overcome by a massive underground coal fire in 1962. As a result hundreds of residents had to be relocated.
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)
This film demonstrates how labor law has crippled the collective bargaining power of unions and weighed the scales of justice against working people. The documentary follows the 1988 United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal Company that followed the expiration of their contract and Pittston's termination of the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows, and disabled miners.
One of the most important Kentuckians of the 20th century, Harry Caudill brought the story of Appalachia to national attention when his book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” was released in 1963. The nonfiction account of Eastern Kentucky’s coal region, part history and part polemic, eloquently recounted the exploitation of Appalachia’s land and its people by business and government interests, and made Caudill a national spokesperson for his homeland. Harry Caudill spent his life advocating for Eastern Kentucky, with the aim of helping the powerless as well as securing the region’s unmatched natural resources for future generations. His work led to lasting government reforms for Appalachia, and his legacy remains a touchstone for activists today.
Mine Your Own Business is a 2006 documentary film directed and produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney about the Roșia Montană mining project. The film asserts that environmentalists' opposition to the mine is unsympathetic to the needs and desires of the locals, prevents industrial progress, and consequently locks the people of the area into lives of poverty. The film claims that the majority of the people of the village support the mine, and the investment in their hometown. The film presents foreign environmentalists as alien agents opposed to progress, while residents are depicted as eagerly awaiting the new opportunity.
An intimate portrait of John Lokitis, the youngest remaining resident of Centralia, Pennsylvania, and his quixotic fight to keep alive a hometown that has literally disintegrated under his feet. His unbowed determination and steadfast refusal to acknowledge defeat reveal a man, a town, a region, and a way of life abandoned and forgotten.
A story of struggle and tragedy, the film features harrowing underground disasters, heroic rescues and traces a history of strikes, industrial turmoil and the current push by global mining giants to destroy regional communities and replace local mineworkers with a subservient itinerant workforce.
The Bimblebox Nature Refuge lies in the path of what will be the earths largest coal mines. One woman, Paola Cassoni, decides to resist the "China First" project that will destroy her Nature Refuge and supply energy to Asia for the next thirty years. Paola's decision brings the viewer on a tour of Australia's "Quarry Vision". At this critical time, when so much coal and coal seam gas expansion is planned in Australia, this film aims to win the hearts and minds of the people, exposing the destructiveness of this industry to our climate, communities and environment. It tells the stories of the people fighting for their homes and culture. Australia is the worlds largest exporter of coal supplying one third of the worlds supply. It is impossible to address climate change without looking at Australia's role in the planets climate future. http://www.screenzone.tv/products/bimblebox
The majestic rebirth of Manchester's Bradford Colliery and other stories.
The work done by men and women at the coal face and the pit head.
Semi-documentary, focusing on the training young boys receive before they are sent down the mines on their first job.
Southern Gothic tale of a coal miner pushed to his limits for the love of his son.
For 200 years, coal mining had been a way of life in Cape Breton. By 1920 things were looking up: miners were unionized and paid decent wages. Then the British Empire Steel Corporation arrived and bought every single steel and coal company in Nova Scotia. BESCO cut wages by a third, setting off a bitter labour dispute. The miners settled in for a long strike. Finally, in 1925, the military ended the unrest with brute force. But the miners, in one sense, had won. They broke up the monopoly and provided an example to workers across the country.
A reflection on anarchism and labor, ANCIENT SUNSHINE marks a path through the struggles of climate activism and coal extractions in the American West.
Thud and Blunder learn what not to do while in a coal mine.
Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.