Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 5.09 (Mass Media) Documenting Appalachia From Inside and Out: Voices From the Non-Fiction Field
Session Abstract or Summary
Documenting Appalachia is tricky business. For over a century, storytellers working in many mediums--radio, news, television, and cinema--have brought stories from the region to the rest of the country. Today’s storytellers, perhaps filmmakers in particular, must perform a difficult balancing act, navigating a history that includes stereotypical depictions and two-dimensional portraiture while aiming to tell authentic stories about this unique place that so many of us call home. This panel explores the experience of making media in and about the region as seen from the perspectives of four different documentary filmmakers.
What does it mean to tell a story about a place? How does the origin, home, and regional identity of a storyteller impact the way she or he tells stories about a region and the challenges they meet along the way? Following the conference theme of “many musics,” this panel delves into questions of media representation and the experience of making documentary work in Appalachia as seen through a diverse set of perspectives, including filmmakers who were born here and have stayed to make work as well as filmmakers from outside who have come to the region to make films.
Presentation #1 Title
Relocating Story
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Tom Hansell is originally from Dayton, Ohio, and relocated to Appalachia in 1990 to work at WMMT-FM, the non commercial radio service of the Appalshop media arts center. He will talk about the experience of making his films as someone who relocated to the region to make documentary work. At Appalshop, Hansell learned both documentary skills as well as techniques for grounding his work in Appalachian communities. Hansell’s film include Coal Bucket Outlaw, The Electricity Fairy, and his current project, After Coal.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Tom Hansell is a documentary filmmaker and installation artist who lives and works in the Appalachian Mountains. Hansell teaches Appalachian Studies and Documentary Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and has twenty years experience at the Appalshop media arts center working with students and adults to create media about their communities. Hansell’s latest project is After Coal: Welsh and Appalachian Mining Communities.
Presentation #2 Title
From the Outside In
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Rubin grew up visiting the Appalachian region and her mother’s home in east Tennessee. Now making her third documentary in Appalachia, Rubin will discuss the experience of making films in a region other than one’s home. Rubin’s mother is from the mountains of east Tennessee. As a young filmmaker, Rubin became interested in exploring what she viewed as the “real Appalachia”--an Appalachia different from the two-dimensional stereotypes of “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Deliverance”--through the documentary lens. Early in her career, Rubin worked as Associate Producer on David Sutherland’s Country Boys, a Frontline film about two teenage boys growing up in Floyd County, Kentucky, and then her own film, Deep Down, about mountaintop removal coal mining in the same county. She is now working on The Hollywood Hillbilly, about media representation in Appalachia, and will discuss issues raised in the film as well as her personal experiences working on several projects here.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Sally Rubin teaches Documentary Film at Chapman University. She recently completed Life on the Line, about a teenage girl growing up on the U.S./Mexico border. The film broadcast nationally on PBS in Fall 2014. Her previous film, Deep Down, about mountaintop removal, broadcast on Independent Lens, the Emmy-winning PBS series, and has reached almost 1.5 million people through its broadcast, distribution, and outreach campaign, and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Presentation #3 Title
Documenting Home
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Smith’s presentation will explore the experience of making films in the region where one is from, and will cover how the experience of working as a documentary filmmaker in Appalachia has changed over the decades since he began work here. Since 1969 when he was a high school student, Herb Smith has played an active role in Appalshop, a media organization based in Whitesburg, Kentucky, that has shepherded dozens of documentary films over its decades-old history. Smith continues to make films in the area where he was raised, exploring cultural, social and economic issues of the Appalachian region in his films. Smith will also discuss issues of media representation in Appalachia as addressed in his 1984 film Strangers and Kin.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Herb Smith has created portraits of Appalachia for decades. Smith recently completed The Ralph Stanley Story and a film based on an essay by Kentucky writer Wendell Berry, Thoughts in the Presence of Fear. His films and videotapes have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and international screenings of his work include Paris, Berlin, Rome, Calcutta, Bombay and Chengdu.
Presentation #4 Title
Home to the Holler
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Ashley York will discuss the experience of having moved away from the Appalachian region, only to return as a documentary filmmaker making work here. Now making her second film in the region, York will talk about creating films as an Insider / Outsider, someone originally from a region but living elsewhere. York grew up in one of the most rural areas of Kentucky for the first 18 years of her life, in a single-wide trailer nestled deep within a mountain hollow in Pikeville, Kentucky. She left the region to go to college and experienced a tremendous amount of ridicule and criticism from her classmates based on where she came from, specifically because of her southern dialect. She later moved to Los Angeles to pursue a degree in filmmaking at the University of Southern California and from that vantage-point, became inspired to explore the stories of Appalachian-Americans. In her first feature-film, she returns home to make So Help You God, about a murder that landed six teenagers from her hometown in prison. She’s now working on The Hollywood Hillbilly, about media representation of the Appalachian region.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Ashley York grew up in Kimper, Kentucky. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a masters degree in filmmaking and has worked on Academy-Award nominated teams and projects that have premiered at the Sundance, SXSW, and Berlin International film festivals. Her first film, So Help You God, unravels a murder that landed six teenagers from her hometown in prison. She is a part time lecturer in the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Relocating Story
Tom Hansell is originally from Dayton, Ohio, and relocated to Appalachia in 1990 to work at WMMT-FM, the non commercial radio service of the Appalshop media arts center. He will talk about the experience of making his films as someone who relocated to the region to make documentary work. At Appalshop, Hansell learned both documentary skills as well as techniques for grounding his work in Appalachian communities. Hansell’s film include Coal Bucket Outlaw, The Electricity Fairy, and his current project, After Coal.
