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 edited by Sonya Polonsky and produced by Peggy Rajski and Maggie Renzi.
Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners’ struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. With a crackerjack ensemble cast and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Haskell Wexler, Matewan taps into a rich vein of Americana with painstaking attention to local texture, issuing an impassioned cry for justice that still resounds today.
Union organizer Joe Kenehan, a scab named “Few Clothes” Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan’s vested interests so that justice and workers’ rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
Reviews
"Matewan is a heartfelt, straight-ahead tale of labor organizing in the coal mines of West Virginia in 1920 that runs its course like a train coming down the track." –Variety
Film Stills
