This month, the screenings of "Deep Down" and other Reel Power films begin across the nation.  Check out the "supertrailer" for this collection of powerful environmental films that together, tell a much bigger picture about energy and our relationship to it. 

In October of 2011, we had the priviledge of traveling to Belarus to present Deep Down and several excellent American documentaries as part of the U.S. State Department's American Documentary Showcase program.

We're just back from the Wild and Scenic Film Festival's 10th Anniversary festival, where Deep Down's People Power series premiered with its 8th episode, "Mountain Roots."

Mountain Roots is about Carol Judy, a traditional Appalachian wild root digger from Eagan, Tennessee, who supports her family and cures her mother's cancer by gathering ginseng and other roots from her ancestral mountains. When a coal company comes to town and threatens a 10-mile strip, Carol rises as a leader in her community and works to fight the pending mine.

As always, participating in Wild and Scenic's admirable festival was not only a privilege but a total blast. The weekend was graced by such films as Josh Fox's Gasland, the beautiful Buck, and the most recent mountaintop removal mining film to hit big screens, The Last Mountain. Wild and Scenic's mission is to "inspire people and unite communities to heal the earth." It does just that.

We were particularly honored this year to have had the opportunity to screen "Mountain Roots" in the historica Nevada Theater. The film was also nominated for Best Short at the festival. Thank you, Wild and Scenic, and our fans and supporters in the Sierra Nevada mountains, for another terrific year!

A Story From the Heart of Coal Country
by Erin, Belgrave Review (March 31st, 2011)

Deep Down: A Story From the Heart of Coal Country takes a look at mountaintop removal in Maytown, eastern Kentucky, where coal is king. The documentary focuses on two Maytown residents who find themselves on opposite sides of the argument when a large coal company makes a move to mine in the area.

We had the great opportunity to ask co-directorsJen Gilomen and Sally Rubin to talk to them their most recent documentary Deep Down. Check out what they had to say!

Q. Deep Down is a very interesting story about an issue that many Americans don’t know much about, yet coal is still the number one source of energy. How did two Californian women end up in eastern Kentucky? What inspired you to write this story?

A. We began with the desire to make a film about industry and socioeconomic class in America, which led us to explore the Appalachian region. Our families are from the mountains of east Tennessee and the small town industrial community of Peoria, Illinois, so we had personal connections to rural working America and the Appalachian region. We were committed to putting a new face on Appalachia, to offer the people of this region a look at their lives through the lens of outside media, that was different than what had been previously offered. We then discovered mountaintop removal coal mining, and knew right away that this was the issue our film would explore. We were looking for a story we could follow from start to finish, and it was then a matter of finding subjects on the cusp of a story who could carry a rich and personal story and provide complex perspectives. In June, 2007, we met Beverly May, who introduced us to her friend Terry, and we were off and running.

Q. What were your main goals with the film? How does it inspire mindfulness around energy consumption and increase demand for alternative energy?

A. We have three main goals for impact: 1) to connect Americans in a new way to Appalachia, its mountains, and its people; 2) to raise awareness of mountaintop removal mining and support related policy; and 3) to inspire mindfulness around energy consumption and increase demand for alternative energy.

Older than the Himalayas and central to the American story, the Appalachian Mountains are unmatched in their ecological diversity and cultural wealth. Global audiences are hungry for environmental stories that delve deeper than the purely scienti?c, political, and stereotypical. Therein lies the potential for a human story, like the story in Kentucky, to reconnect Americans to our own power to affect the future. Deep Downincites debate, motivating people to create change on both a personal level and a global level. By asking us to trace our power lines to people far removed from our daily lives, and by making real human connections between viewers and subjects, Deep Down inspires all Americans to protect Appalachia, our shared legacy, and our planet.

Q. Is it possible to balance economic interests and environmental ones? It’s a difficult argument seeing people choose between the present and future. How did your opinions evolve over filming?

A. Our opinions evolved a lot over the period of filming, and there were really several challenges: being west-coast filmmakers trying to make a long-form cinema verité documentary portrait, which required access and intimacy to tell the story in the way we wanted to tell it, was difficult at times. Gaining the kind of access we wanted — and keeping it — was always hard. We believe that our subjects, always cognizant of our own potential bias and concerned as much about the integrity of the film as we were — kept us on our toes and made us better filmmakers. Additionally, not being from Appalachia ourselves, and being lifelong environmentalists, we definitely initially had a “one-sided” view. When we saw the horrific mountaintop removal mines, our first reaction was to think that it had to stop immediately, without really questioning what was behind this issue, what alternatives were immediately available, and who, ultimately, was responsible for causing this destruction. Once we began uncovering the intricacies of the topic, and how deeply reliant Appalachia is on coal, the film and its message became much more complex.

Q. It’s a complex situation because ultimately the community feels powerless because they are caught up in this huge machine that was built to mine coal. Either way they have to deal with impacts. Can you elaborate?

A. As we enter the twenty-first century, America’s energy consumption is at an all-time peak, expected to double by 2030. 50% of American homes garner 90% of their electricity from Appalachian coal. Coal has always been the root of the Appalachian economy and people are reliant upon this industry to support their families, so eliminating coal is not an option. Finding alternatives to mountaintop removal mining is.

Q. What role does the tight knit culture of the communities play in these decisions confronted by your protagonists Terry and Beverly?

A. Mainly, it just makes it more challenging to make your own decision without being influenced by others. It’s a small community and people talk; people generally know what each other are doing.

Q. The mining companies seem to be praying on the poverty of these communities. What was it like trying to interact with the mining companies in your film?

A. People often ask us whether we attempted to involve the coal company and mining community in our film, and the answer is yes, persistently and through every avenue imaginable. We made contacts at the upper echelons of the mining company through family connections, we called and spoke to them openly, we interviewed and filmed with folks from the industry who ultimately would not participate in the film for fear of losing their jobs. The truth of the matter is, people are afraid of retribution, and we understand why. There are no more coal mining unions in Appalachia to protect these workers. With industrialization, and with giant machinery like a drag line, mining can be done with fewer and fewer people, so competition over jobs becomes all the more intense. Ironically, the fewer jobs there are, the greater a wedge is driven forcing people in a tightly knit community apart, into those who make their living directly or indirectly through mining, and those who suffer the consequences. In the end, we were able to incorporate the voice of a local mining engineer, an old family friend of the Ratliffs, who contributes his own balanced and complex view of mining, and voices of the miners, their families, and company representatives at the public hearings we captured. Although Beverly and Terry provide sometimes opposing and always complex perspectives on coal mining, we do wish the folks from Miller Brothers Coal would have been willing to speak with us so we could include their perspective in the film, but we don’t think their absence detracts too much from the story we were trying to tell, which isn’t ultimately about the company, it is about people in their own lives grappling with the consequences of our consumption of energy.

Q. You made the film very intimately and really picked up on the way in which human beings struggle with themselves and their decisions. Is that something you intended from the start?

A. Yes- and a lot of this had to do with accessing and gaining trust. We gained the trust of our subjects the same way trust is built in any friendship or relationship: by spending time with them, by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, and by proving ourselves reliable and worthy of their trust. Returning repeatedly to the region for almost three years, and keeping in touch with genuine interest between our visits, showed these folks that we were here to stay, that we weren’t looking to “grab a story” and leave, that we wanted to understand the issue, and that we were willing to spend the time and the resources to do it. In doing so, we had to let go of our own hang-ups, and really, truly listen with love and compassion.

Q. Where can our readers find out more about organizing at a national level?

A. Our organizing with the film has involved partnerships with: the Natural Resources Defense Council, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, Appalachian Voices, Mujeres de la Tierra, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Interfaith Power and Light, and the Lindquist Environmental Appalachian Fellowship. We suggest that readers start with a local chapter of a national organization working to serve the issue they’re fighting for.