Event Host: The Appalachian Project, Ohio
Short Description: Screening of the film, Harlan County USA, with the film's producer and director Barbara Kopple. The film follows the 1974 strike of Kentucky mine workers. The screening will be followed by a musical performance by David Morris, who provided some of the music for the documentary. Kopple will discuss aspects of documentary film-making as well as her current project,Shelter, which
Join us for a screening and discussion of Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), a documentary account of the 1974 strike of Kentucky mine workers. The screening will be followed by a musical performance by David Morris, who provided some of the music for the documentary. Kopple will discuss aspects of documentary film-making as well as her current project, Shelter, which examines homeless veterans and features music by David Morris and his son, Jack Ballangee Morris.
Harlan County U.S.A. documents the 1974 strike of Kentucky mine workers when Duke Power acquired the Eastover Mining Company and refused to honor their union contract in the United Mine Workers union. Kopple photographs the picketing, the company’s use of state troopers and the showdowns between the miners and the strikebreakers during this riveting documentary.
Kopple produced and directed Harlan County USA and American Dream, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 1991, Harlan County USA was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and designated an American Film Classic. Harlan County USA was restored and preserved by the Women’s Preservation Fund and the Academy Film Archive, and was featured as part of the Sundance Collection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. The Criterion Collection released a DVD of the documentary in 2006.
This event is organized by The Appalachian Project, Ohio (a collaboration between the Center for Folklore Studies, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Student Life’s Department of Social Change), and co-sponsored by the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy; Wexner Center for the Arts; Comparative Studies; Film Studies; the Department of English; and the Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise.
Admission: $6 for students, members and $8 general public.
