Appalshop

A terminally ill former coal-truck and school-bus driver sets off in her yellow mini-bus through the Appalachian mountains on a final journey to reconcile with her past and her fractured family.

Anne Braden: Southern Patriot is a first person documentary about the extraordinary life of this American civil rights leader. Braden was hailed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail as a white southerner whose rejection of her segregationist upbringing was eloquent and prophetic. Ostracized as a red in the 1950s, she fought for an inclusive movement community and mentored three generations of social justice advocates. Braden’s story explores not only the dangers of racism and political repression but also the power of a woman’s life spent in commitment to social justice.

For Nixon's first public appearance since resigning the presidency, Richard Nixon chose the small mountain community of Leslie County, Kentucky. Priceless footage of Nixon's 1978 visit introduces this incisive and sometimes hilarious look at the engines that drive American politics. The film explores the machinations of party politics in this rural and staunchly Republican county: hollow to hollow vote-hunting; family squabbles over candidates; patronage promises; speech-making on the courthouse steps; and the up-and-down career of the incumbent county Judge-Executive who sought re-election while under indictment for vote fraud conspiracy

Gurney Norman's short story, navigates the intricate relationship between young Wilgus Collier and the enigmatic Fat Monroe. As Wilgus embarks on his journey home, he encounters Monroe, whose peculiar personality and antics challenge the boy's perceptions of the world and the adults within it. Many viewers will resonate with the frustration of navigating adult sarcasm during childhood, making the narrative universally relatable.

Coal Bucket Outlaw is a documentary that asks Americans to look at where our energy comes from at a time when coal still produced over half of our nation's electricity, and reveals the human and environmental price we pay for our national addiction to fossil fuels. Built around a day in the life of a Kentucky coal truck driver, the film brings viewers into the cab of the truck and into the lives of the people who live and work by coal haul roads for a truly wild ride. A veteran driver who owns his own truck, and a young family struggling to pay the bills guide the audience along one-lane roads, up tight hollows, onto strip mines, and around coal processing facilities, while discussion of coal’s role in providing our nation with electricity connects the lives of these truckers to the lives of everyone in America.

Appalachian Genesis, one of the first Appalshop films, was commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission to document the state of mind of Appalachian young people in the early 1970s. It presents a vivid picture of the social activism and upheaval that had begun in the 1960s, especially with the War on Poverty. Appalachian youth speak out about the coal industry, the educational system, job opportunities, health care, politics and poverty. The film still resonates today as young people in growing numbers of communities across the country grapple with many of the same structural problems and experiences.

In their efforts to better their children’s education, the residents of this small West Virginia community found themselves face to face with an unfeeling, bureaucratic political structure. "Struggle of Coon Branch Mountain" documents their fight for a better road and decent schools, an effort that includes organizing the community, setting up their own school, and finally a march on the governor’s office. The film ends with a partial victory and determination to continue the struggle, and will be of interest to community organizers, as well as students of education, public policy, and rural issues.

Ray Hicks is a mountain farmer from Beech Mountain, North Carolina, with a genius for telling traditional folktales that have been passed down in his family for generations. This film shows Ray working on his farm, gathering herbs in the woods, and describing his family’s tradition of storytelling and his theories of human and natural continuity. Running throughout the film is Ray telling a tale called “Whickity-Whack, Into My Sack” (also known as “Soldier Jack”). Viewers will be charmed by Ray's tales and wiser to the traditional ways of life still in practice in the 1970s in central Appalachia.

Appalshop’s first dramatic film, In Ya Blood is the story of a prototypical young man from Appalachia in the summer after his senior year in high school. Randy, the protagonist, must make the difficult decision faced by many Appalachian youth‑‑whether to stay in the mountains or leave in search of a “better life.” The film follows Randy as he struggles with his alternatives of working in the coal mines or going off to college. Shot in black and white by filmmakers the same age as those portrayed in the film, In Ya Blood is highly effective as an insider’s look at the decisions faced by many teenagers as they consider their futures.

A native of Eastern Kentucky, Belinda Mason was, as she says,“a small town journalist, a young mother, a reliable Tupperware party guest” until she became infected with the HIV virus in 1987. She decided to go public with her condition and spent the rest of her life as a powerful advocate for AIDS prevention, education, treatment, and human rights. The film features Belinda talking about her own experiences dealing with AIDS and the support she found within her rural community, and includes a presentation she made with her pastor to members of the Southern Baptist Convention: “People ask me if I think AIDS is a punishment from God. I can’t pretend to fathom what God is thinking, but maybe we should look at AIDS as a test, not for the people who are infected, but for the rest of us.” Funny, down to earth, and never self-pitying, Belinda speaks with a moving eloquence of our need for a collective response to AIDS that is not crippled by racism, homophobia, fear or ignorance.

1974 documentary about Clarence Frederick "Catfish" Gray a herbalist and folk doctor in West Virginia.

Quilting Women traces the process of traditional Appalachian quilting, from cutting out and piecing together the patterns to the quilting bee. Quilters comment on the origins of the generations-old patterns, the time and patience required, the satisfaction of accomplishment, the quilts as art, and the companionship offered by women working together over a quilting frame.

Nimrod Workman won a National Heritage Award for his original songs, but in the film that shares his name, he often breaks into impromptu performances of traditional ballads, dances, and delivers monologues that are just as superlative. Born in 1895, Workman provided for a family of thirteen by working in the coal mines of West Virginia, and he reminisces about his experience with union organizing in the 1920s and 30s with anecdotes that match many of the experiences of miners of later years, too. To Fit My Own Category is an extended visit at his home as Workman and his family prepare meals, build an addition to the house, dig for yellow root, swap jokes with the neighbors, and enjoy each other’s company.

Artist Angie DeBord tells stories, both verbally and through her beautifully colorful paintings, representing Appalachian folklore, myth, and her ancestors.

There is a constant tension between the forces of an ever-changing economy and the need to have stable communities. As technologies change, workers can lose their jobs and whole communities can be capsized. Beyond Measure looks at thousands of coal miners who are losing their jobs as newer and bigger machine moves through the coalfields. The film places the present challenges in a larger historical context and documents efforts of citizens to rebuild their communities, highlighting the beauty and challenges of living in the mountains through people's descriptions of their daily lives in their own voices. They describe how the mutual aid and support of extended families and attachments to the land are more important than the things economists usually measure, prompting questions about the true costs of economic and technological change.

Produced by Nik Lee and Ellie Mullins, this official selection of the 2022 Boone Docs Film Festival offers expansive interviews covering the lives of six LGBTQ+ folks — all Appalachian and all “successful” in their own ways. As Long As You Can hopes to answer young LGBTQ+ Appalachians who are faced — every day — with the decision to leave or stay.

The experience of artmaking in Appalachia is a complex one. An Appalachian identity often creates a distinctive and strong relationship between person and homeplace, but artists are told they need to leave the region in order to learn and innovate. Being told to leave home and to escape tradition is a hard thing to reckon with, both as a person and an artist. When the artists we interviewed left home, their connection with a homeplace was what inspired them creatively much more than the urban, non-Appalachian communities they joined. As young artists in Appalachia, we wanted to learn from their innovations and their experiences of coming home in “The Art of Finding Home.”

John Jacob Niles is a portrait of the adding machine repairman who came to Eastern Kentucky in 1909, “heard the songs [his] father sang,” and became a much-noted “arranger, expander, collector, recorder, and performer” of traditional Appalachian ballads. Niles played an important part in the national “discovery” of Appalachian folk music. He describes how he travelled with the photographer Doris Ulmann through the 1920s and 30s — she taking pictures of the people, and he learning their songs. The film shows Niles in concert, at home, at work arranging his music, and explaining the historical place of balladry in American music.

In this small town “epic,” the people of Whitesburg, KY speak directly to the camera about unemployment, student unrest, and the Vietnam War. The down-home candor of the exchanges presents a revolutionary alternative to the voice-over narration then common in commercial productions. Stripped to the basics, the documentary has an energy and immediacy only possible in a film made by the participants themselves.