Event

Harlan County USA

Barbara Kopples Academy Awardwinning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrackwith legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reecethe film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

"its a work that typifies the vibrant, non-fiction film activism that is still evolving today. . . . Its brilliant, observational, reactive, community-focused filmmaking." - margaret salmon

"Kopples riveting documentary classic still reverberates truths about our forgotten working class. The film reminds us how organized labor used to be as American as apple pie, even in places like Kentuckywhere unions were once part of the populist fabric." - Brooklyn

"The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives -- articulate, indominable, courageous." - Ebert