Mountain Talk (2004)

Running for the Mountains

RUNNING FOR THE MOUNTAINS digs into West Virginia's history of 'patriotic sacrifice,' unearthing veins of dark money and dirty politics. The film tracks grassroots candidates and ordinary citizens' attempts to save their land, water, homes, and communities - calling out the pro-extraction politicians enabling destruction, including Senator Joe Manchin and his likely replacement, coal baron Governor Jim Justice. Appalachia is the proverbial canary in a coal mine; pay attention or pay the price.

Picture Proof

Examines the intergenerational impact of addiction by chronicling the love, labor, loss, and uncertainty of one woman’s struggle to live a life of sobriety. Weaving together moments of glee, fulfillment, acceptance, sorrow, and disappointment, this documentary takes an intimate look at the bonds that hold one family together and a disease that threatens to tear them apart.

King Coal

The cultural roots of coal continue to permeate the rituals of daily life in Appalachia even as its economic power wanes. The journey of a coal miner’s daughter exploring the region’s dreams and myths, untangling the pain and beauty, as her community sits on the brink of massive change.

The Curse and the Jubilee

An intimate, arresting portrait of the cursed Appalachian mining town of Ivanhoe, Virginia. The film captures the town as it prepares for the annual Jubilee, a wild 4th of July celebration where families and neighbors let loose and triumph over daily hardships, industrial abandonment, and race.

Portraits and Dreams

Revisit photographs created by Kentucky school children in the 1970s and the place where their photos were made. Photographer and artist Wendy Ewald, who guided the students in making their visionary photographs, returns to Kentucky and learns how the lives and visions of her former students have changed.

The End of an Old Song

John Cohen, founding member of the ‘50s folk troupe the New Lost City Ramblers, started making films in order to bring together the two disciplines he was heavily active in: music and photography. The End of an Old Song brings us to North Carolina, and demonstrates the power of old English ballads sung with gusto while soused in a saloon.

American Hollow

This documentary follows the lives of the Bowling family as they fight to survive in dirt-poor Appalachia. Matriarch Iree has given birth to 13 children, but only two have left to seek better lives in Ohio while the rest have married and started their own impoverished families near home. Uneducated and unskilled, all are unemployed, and domestic violence and alcoholism pose serious problems. The filmmakers explore the family's relationships through interviews and footage of their daily lives.

You Gave Me A Song: The Life and Music of Alice Gerrard

You Gave Me A Song offers an intimate portrait of old-time music pioneer Alice Gerrard and her remarkable, unpredictable journey creating and preserving traditional music. The film follows eighty-four year old Gerrard over several years, weaving together verité footage of living room rehearsals, recording sessions, songwriting, archival work, and performances with photos and rare field recordings. Much of the film is told in Alice’s voice and via interviews with musical collaborators and family members who share the story of Alice and others chasing that high lonesome sound.

My Great Great Great Uncle Built Churches

Bob Childress was the founder and builder of the famous "Rock Churches" of southwest Virginia, all established between 1919 and 1954. In 2022, Buford Jessup and his family set out to visit all seven of his great uncle's churches.

Sprout Wings and Fly

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.

Mountain Monsters: A Tribute to Trapper

The Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings (A.I.M.S.) team comes together to reminisce and celebrate the life of their founder, John "Trapper" Tice, in this Mountain Monsters special.

The Last Sin Eater

In seeking her own redemption from the one man of whom she is most afraid, 10-year-old Cadi Forbes discovers a secret sin haunting her community of Welsh immigrants in 1850s Appalachia.

The World Made Straight

In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.

Loggerheads

A troubled woman seeks out the child she gave up for adoption; a gay motel owner takes in a handsome drifter; and the wife of a preacher frets that a gay couple has moved in across the street. All of their lives will intersect as Loggerheads subtly draws out their secret losses and desires.

The Descent

After a personal tragedy, Sarah joins her friends on a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. But when a rockfall traps them deep underground, their adventure turns into a nightmare. As they search for a way out, the group discovers they are not alone—lurking in the darkness are savage, cave-dwelling creatures. With rising tension and dwindling trust, the women must fight to survive against both the predators and each other.

Them That Follow

A Pentecostal pastor, Lemuel Childs, and his believers handle venomous snakes to prove themselves before God. Lemuel’s daughter, Mara holds a secret that threatens to tear the church apart: her romantic past with a nonbeliever, Augie. As Mara’s wedding to a devoted follower looms, she must decide whether or not to trust the steely matriarch of their community, Hope, with her heart and life at stake.

White Lightnin'

Deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, where every man owns a gun and a moonshine still, abides living legend Jesco White, "the dancing outlaw". As a boy Jesco was in and out of reform school and the insane asylum. To keep him out of trouble, his daddy D-Ray taught him the art of mountain dancing, a frenzied version of tap dancing to wild country banjo music. After his father's death, crazy Jesco dons his father's tap shoes and takes his show on the road.

Appalachian Dog

Appalachia, 1946: a seamstress welcomes home her tailor husband to find they are not the team they were. Trying to stitch their old life back together, time and again it threatens to fall apart - with each of them pulling at the thread.

Lawless

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

The Clearing

A storm that has been continuing to swell over Appalachia for 5 months with no sign of stopping. While journalist and her colleague are on route to continue ongoing interviews with survivors about strange psychological behavior following the storm, she inexplicably wakes up alone in an empty jeep, parked in a clearing, surrounded only by Appalachian wilderness. After realizing the car will not start, she makes the bold decision to find her way back to civilization on foot, despite being lost. With vivid recurring thoughts and visions of personal childhood trauma manifesting around her, she finds herself unable to leave the woods, instead mysteriously returning to the clearing.

A Walk in the Woods

After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.

The Legend of Hillbilly John

A roaming hillbilly, on a quest to defy the Devil, encounters several supernatural characters and does battle with his silver-stringed guitar.

Cancel Crash

Cancel Crash depicts the dramatic events that saved the world from financial anarchy and present for the first time what actually happened on Black Monday. Framed between the opening bell on a Monday, October 19th and the closing bell of Terrible Tuesday, the story unfolds as the perilous clock ticks, revealing who prevented a global Depression and saved our financial markets. --Tony Vitale

Miss Italia Mustn't Die

Behind the glitz of Miss Italia, director Patrizia Mirigliani fights to save the iconic pageant, now wavering amid scandals and changing beauty standards.

David & Me

When troubled teen Ray Klonsky began writing letters to prison inmate David McCallum, both of their lives changed forever. Hundreds of letters later, Ray graduated from university determined to set his wrongly convicted friend free.

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.

Jimmy Murakami: Non-Alien

A documentary film about acclaimed filmmaker Jimmy T. Murakami and his emotional return to Tule Lake concentration camp in America.

Hunting Hitler's Stolen Treasures: The Monuments Men

The true story of an unlikely World War II band of brothers: the unsuspecting group of scholars, academics, historians and architects headed to the front lines to rescue thousands of years' worth of European art and culture from Nazi-occupied Europe.

City of Ali

City of Ali is a feature-length documentary that tells the story of how the death of Muhammad Ali brought the people of his Kentucky hometown - and the world - together for one unforgettable week.

Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol

Documentary following Bristol’s mayor, Marvin Rees, as he and the city respond to the extraordinary events which followed the toppling of the Colston Statue in the summer of 2020.