Realities of coal industry portrayed through film, music

Every day countless Americans living in the Appalachian mountain range face the destruction of their surroundings because of mountaintop coal mining.

The Buskirk-Chumley Theater will present the premiere of the documentary “Coal Country” at  2 p.m. Sunday.

“Transnational companies use explosives to blow the coal out of the mountaintops,” said Andy Mahler, Heartwood’s network support coordinator and co-producer of the “Coal Country Music” companion CD. “They have buried nearly 14,000 miles of water, river and streams. In West Virginia alone, they use three million pounds of explosives a day. They use more explosives every week than what we used at Hiroshima. If someone else was doing it to us we would consider it an act of war. It is not just business as usual.”

Mahler said mountaintop coal mining is a serious problem that affects all Americans.
For this reason, executive producer Mari-Lynn Evans and director Phylis Geller sought to make a film that examined the realities of the modern coal mining industry in the Appalachian mountain range region of West Virginia, eastern Tennessee and Kentucky.

"Coal Country” is a film that balances perspectives from both the coal companies and the activists who fight for the end of mountaintop removal.

“The most important thing was picking out the characters in the film that have lived down there and telling their stories,” Evans said. “You have people on both sides who are really desperate. This really is a matter of life and death for them.”

She said that she began making the film four years ago after her brother got a job in the coal industry.

“I actually could not believe this was going on,” she said. “In the film, you see both the genocide of Appalachian culture and Randy, who is working for the coal industry.”

Along with the film screening, there will also be musical performances that feature artists from the compilation album of the same name.

“A couple of years ago we hatched the idea to do a CD project to help raise awareness of mountaintop removal,” said Jason Wilber, co-producer of the “Coal Country Music” companion CD. “The Appalachians are most commonly thought of with music, so when Andy met Mary-Lynn Evans at a Heartland event, we decided to join forces.”

The result of their efforts is the “Coal Country” CD. The CD includes 19 songs sung by artists ranging from Willie Nelson to John Prine.

Both Mahler and Wilber said the Alliance for Appalachia will be receiving all of the proceeds from the CD.

Organizations such as Heartland and the Alliance for Appalachia have been actively working for political and social action on the issue of mountaintop coal removal.

“We work with communities that are impacted by mountaintop removal,” said Dana Kuhnline, the coordinator of the Alliance for Appalachia. “We are trying to work with the Obama administration to try to relay the urgency of the situation. In the meantime, we are trying to enforce the laws of mountaintop removal that have been ignored. We want to restore those laws and protect the communities and people that live there.”