Going to Sundance!!!

It's been a while since I last posted. Twenty-ten was a busy year for me. Since February, I have been working at Uncommon Productions in Waltham, MA, on The Last Mountain, a feature-length documentary film about the ills of mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia. We recently found out that the film will be premiering at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, as one of 16 films in competition in the U.S. Documentary category. We're extremely excited about this news, and about the potential Sundance presents to catapult the film into the public eye.The Last Mountain looks at the crossroads we're at as a nation in terms of energy. Half of the energy we consume as Americans comes from coal. Yet, most of us are unaware of where that coal comes from and how it's extracted and processed. Part-Food, Inc., part-Erin Brockovich, The Last Mountain takes a critical look at the coal industry, and sheds light on what really goes down in coal country so that you and I can turn the lights on each day.

Activist and West Virginia resident Maria Gunnoe mourns the loss of the land she grew up on, now a mountaintop-removal mine site.

As the film's Assistant Editor, I had the luxury of pouring through the hundreds of hours of footage that was shot over the last 3 1/2 years. While I am immensely proud of the Director, Producer and Editor for the final film they created, let's just say that there was enough footage to make at least three or four more films on the subject. This is a very broad issue whose tentacles run deep. As activist Maria Gunnoe (above) says, "You're connected to coal whether you realize it or not. Everybody's connected to this, and everybody's causing it, and everybody's allowing it." If you use electricity, you're linked to this film. I'll post again with screening info as it becomes available.