free showing at the library

thanks to Dave Cooper for the following information....get down there if you can and perhaps someone can post a review/response.

The classic 1977 strip mining documentary film "In Memory of the Land
and People" will be screened tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 7:00 at the
downtown Lexington Public Library Theater. Admission is free,
sponsored by Lexington Environmental Action Project and Mountain
Justice Summer.

Following the film, filmmaker Bob Gates from Charleston, West Virginia
will lead a discussion and Q&A about his film.

I highly recommend seeing this unforgettable film.

More:

Jim Webb, Station Manager of Appalshop’s WMMT-FM radio station says "I
will never have words for what that film did to me. It changed my
life…It broke my heart. I have not seen this movie in over 20 years but
I remember it indelibly. No one has seen it in way too long."

"Gates has expressively woven the visual action with the deep feelings
and dark furies of the music of 20th Century composer Bela Bartok, as
well as with the simple, melodic folk songs of Mike Kline and Rich
Kirby," said Greg Carannante, of Mountain Call.

"Unlike many documentaries, Gates's presentation includes no script or
narration. Rather, it is composed of a series of striking visual
images, skillfully photographed and artistically integrated. The voices
heard in the film are those of people who reside in regions where strip
mining has taken place, and describe in their own words its devastating
effects on their land and lives," said Elizabeth Lawrence, an
anthropologist at Tufts University.

The film has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at
hearings held by the late Congressman Leo J. Ryan on Capitol Hill.
Most recently, the film was featured at the Appalachian Studies
Association 2007 annual conference in Maryville, Tennessee.

Gates says “When I was filming the crossing of Interstate 80 by the
"Mountaineer" shovel at the climax of the film, someone said to me over
my shoulder ‘It is a good thing these cannot operate in West Virginia’.
I said ‘just wait’.”

Dave Cooper
The Mountaintop Removal Road Show
http://www.mountainroadshow.com/