Mimi Pickering

Since its 1988 premiere, this critically acclaimed documentary series has presented hundreds of films that put a human face on contemporary social issues by relating a compelling story in an intimate fashion. "POV" has won virtually every major film and broadcasting award available, including 38 Emmys, 22 Peabody Awards and three Oscars.

Anne Braden: Southern Patriot is a first person documentary about the extraordinary life of this American civil rights leader. Braden was hailed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail as a white southerner whose rejection of her segregationist upbringing was eloquent and prophetic. Ostracized as a red in the 1950s, she fought for an inclusive movement community and mentored three generations of social justice advocates. Braden’s story explores not only the dangers of racism and political repression but also the power of a woman’s life spent in commitment to social justice.

A biographical documentary about the life Hazel Dickens profiling a modern woman dealing with contemporary issues from a feminist perspective that is the product of her experiences being Appalachian, being displaced physically and culturally, being poor and working class, being a woman artist in a man’s world, and being a bearer of tradition.

In 1972 a coal-waste dam owned by the Pittston Company collapsed at the head of a crowded hollow in southern West Virginia. A wall of sludge, debris, and water tore through the valley below, leaving in its wake 125 dead and 4,000 homeless. Interviews with survivors, representatives of union and citizen’s groups, and officials of the Pittston Company are juxtaposed with actual footage of the flood and scenes of the ensuing devastation. As reasons for the disaster are sought out and examined, evidence mounts that company officials knew of the hazard in advance of the flood, and that the dam was in violation of state and federal regulations. The Pittston Company, however, continued to deny any wrongdoing, maintaining that the disaster was an “act of God.”

Born in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, Gunning suffered a life of bitter poverty which became the fuel for dozens of moving songs about working people, the mines, and the great coal strikes of the twenties and thirties. In Mimi Pickering's 1988 film, Gunning's a cappella roots music is intercut throughout the interviews and archival footage

Decades after leaving Appalachia, a daughter returns to eastern Kentucky to excavate her father’s remarkable filmmaking legacy and examine the pull home still has on her.

In their efforts to better their children’s education, the residents of this small West Virginia community found themselves face to face with an unfeeling, bureaucratic political structure. "Struggle of Coon Branch Mountain" documents their fight for a better road and decent schools, an effort that includes organizing the community, setting up their own school, and finally a march on the governor’s office. The film ends with a partial victory and determination to continue the struggle, and will be of interest to community organizers, as well as students of education, public policy, and rural issues.

A West Virginia community is deeply divided over potentially life and death questions over a local chemical plant that fuels the area's fragile economy.

Filmed ten years after the flood, Buffalo Creek Revisited looks at the second disaster on Buffalo Creek, in which the survivors’ efforts to rebuild the communities shattered by the flood are thwarted by government insensitivity and a century-old pattern of corporate control of the region’s land and resources. Through the statements of survivors, planners, politicians, psychologists, and community activists, the film explores the psychology of disaster, the importance of community, and the paradox of a poor people living in a rich land.