[van-announce] Video Screening: Matewan

[Gordon Flett]

Matewan

This video will be screening at:
SFU Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings
Vancouver, BC
6:30pm Friday October 4th


A small town in 1920’s West Virginia explodes when unionists miners
clash with the owners of a tyrannical coal company in this critically
acclaimed film from writer/producer John Sayles (Lone Star). James Earl
Jones (Clear and Present Danger) heads a superb ensemble case in this
moving, exciting evocation of one of freedom's forgotten battles.
Mary McDonnell (Independence Day), David Strathairm (The Firm), also
star in the film that Leonard Maltin calls “compelling and
compassionate
John Sayles makes every note ring true.”

Earnest labour leader Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper, A Time To Kill) arrives
in Matewan to better the lives of the men and women of this “company
town” through unionization. But in his efforts to organize the workers
of the Stone Mountain Coal Company, he ignites a powderkeg of racial
hostility, corruption and betrayal – and touches off one of the most
violent incidents in the history of the Coal Wars of 1920-1921.

Haskell Waxler's (Bus Rider’s Union) burnished cinematography and the
film's deft production design fluently recreate an era when scabs, spies
and murderous thugs stood between the miner and the fruits of his toil.
Matewan is a triumph of the human spirit. (Approx. 142 min)

http://vancouver.iww.ca/news/20020909video.htm

Organization - Education - Emancipation
Industrial Workers of the World
http://www.iww.org