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Harlan County USA

Women Directed

Dir. Barbara Kopple USA 103 min

1976 Janus Films

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Saturday, September 5 at Ruth Sokolof – Mary

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Film Information

Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. The film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973: coal miners’ strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company. Eastover’s refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk.

Reviews
"The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners’ strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners’ wives — articulate, indomitable, courageous." – Roger Ebert

E Cap See Change

As part of our See Change initiative, we strive to showcase the work of women and non-binary individuals and their behind-the-scenes involvement in a production.

This film is directed and produced by Barbara Kopple, and edited by Nancy Baker, Mirra Bank, Lora Hays, and Mary Lampson.

Film Information

Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. The film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973: coal miners’ strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company. Eastover’s refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk.

Reviews
"The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners’ strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners’ wives — articulate, indomitable, courageous." – Roger Ebert

E Cap See Change

As part of our See Change initiative, we strive to showcase the work of women and non-binary individuals and their behind-the-scenes involvement in a production.

This film is directed and produced by Barbara Kopple, and edited by Nancy Baker, Mirra Bank, Lora Hays, and Mary Lampson.

Film Stills

Harlan county 1
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