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Butte, America: The Saga of a Hard Rock Mining Town
Directed by: Pamela Roberts *
Documentary | 2009 | 1hr 6min
Montana
www.butteamericafilm.org
About the Film:
Narrated by Gabriel Byrne, BUTTE, AMERICA tells the saga of Butte, Montana, once the world’s largest producer of copper—the Pittsburgh of the West. Here the Industrial Revolution collided with the romance of the frontier, corporate capitalism battled organized labor, and human appetite laid waste to land and water, yielding fortunes for a few and a tragic environmental legacy for the people left behind. Those people are the heart of the film—miners, their families, the working class neighborhoods they created amidst danger and hardship. In a copper crucible, they forged a community whose toughness and solidarity speak to what’s missing in America today. As more countries pursue an urban-industrial lifestyle, requiring vast amounts of natural resources, the story of Butte becomes a story for the world.
Screening Times @ Victory Firehouse
7:15pm Wednesday 6/16
7:15pm Thursday 6/17
About the Fiilmmaker:
Pamela came to filmmaking as a social issue medium after graduating with honors from the University of Southern California with a masters degree in social work. Her interest in film began in 1981, while she was a social worker in the refugee camps of northern Thailand. International journalists and filmmakers hired her as a location scout and editorial assistant. While there, she also worked as a location scout and production manager on her first independent film, Becoming American (Levine Films), before moving to Montana to serve as director of the International Rescue Committee, a Hmong and Laotian resettlement agency. In 1982, Roberts co-founded Rattlesnake Productions, Inc., and over the past 26 years she has produced and directed a number of award-winning documentary films and videos for public television and for national and international theatrical and video distribution.
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