Few West Virginians realize that Walter Reuther, the leader of the United Auto Works, and his two brothers shaped American life for decades. Sasha Reuther, the grandson of Victor, is completing his feature film,”Brothers on the Line,”  about the three brothers. The South Charleston Museum and others will co-sponsor an early showing of the uncompleted film in May at The La Belle Theater. See below for their official press release. They hope to raise $1,000 to help Sasha complete his film. The WV Labor History Assn. voted to give him $250 toward completing the film. One half of the admission price of $5 will also be given to Sasha. There are other supporters as well including the WV AFL-CIO and George Daughtery. See below.

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I finally got through the 150 minutes of a British 2002 film “Western Philosophy,” available from Netflix. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in philosophy simply because it compresses 2,500 years of very advanced, complex thinking in to such a short period of time.

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I got word on Wednesday that the WV Intl. Film Festival will be programming some excellent films. See schedule below. I hope thousands of people show their support of WV’s official film festival by attending the great films.

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Premiere at WVSU Davis Art Center 6 PM-8 PM May 1 in Institute, WV

“Toxic Soup” is a worthy successor to Mimi Pickering’s landmark film, “Chemical Valley,” returning this time to the connections between the chemical industry in West Virginia and the 1984 Bhopal Disaster, plus a whole lot more. It explores the disasterous effects of all the thousands of chemicals invented and used since WWII to make teflon in Parkersburg, and much more.

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thanks to Zeitgeist Films

PBS recently aired a truly moving film called “Worse than War.” I could only watch half of it – over 100 million people were murdered in the 20th century as a result of genocide, more than the number of combat deaths. However, I did finish watching three new films that deal with the Holocaust, previewing them for the WV Jewish Film Festival. All three were very interesting and hopefully people will bet a chace to see them, either shown by the WVJFF or on PBS, Netflix, etc. (more…)

Beverly May, local Kentuckians who led battle against MTR and won – so far

For several years I have been hearing from Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin about their film set in Appalachia. After several name changes, they have released it as “Deep Down.” It is an excellent film and I am sure it will appear on PBS and elsewhere in the near future.

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Gordon Simmons, president of WVLHA in far back, and Anthony Tambureno, on right in sport coat, are two of the members of the two groups that met for the first time

The boards of the West Virginia Labor History Association and the WVU Institute for Labor Studies and Research  met this last Saturday to join forces based on the resolution passed by the 2010 WV Legislature making the week after Labor Day “Labor History Week.” Hopefully, WV labor film festivals, for one, will pop up all over the state. There are many films on WV labor history, and amazingly, many people have never seen “Harlan County, USA” ( Ky. but made by a WV college student, Barbara Kopple) or even “Matewan.” Watch this column for more information

Working Stiffs
Review of 2003 update of “Working Stiffs, Union Mains, Reds and Riffraff”(1996)  by Tom Naniello While planning the first WV LaborDay Film Festival for the Paden City Eagle’s Club that took place over Labor Day weekend in 2005, I found the original version of this book very useful. The original describes 150 films. This new one describes 350 and includes labor films from around the world. (more…)

John Street, president of the WVIFF,   has announced that there will be a spring West Virginia International film festival sometime between April 29 and May 2.  They have NOT made their final decision yet. More to come including some possible titles.

The South Charleston Museum will present an evening with John Lilly, one of West Virginia’s and America’s finest folk musicians, on Saturday, April 10. The event will begin at 7 PM. Admission is $ 4.00. (more…)