2008 FESTIVAL
56 min.
Two grandmothers, Carrie Dann and Mary Dann, have been at the forefront of the Western Shoshone Nation’s struggle for land rights and sovereignty for nearly 40 years. American Outrage documents their fight against the U.S. government’s unlawful attempts to take over traditional Shoshone land in Nevada, part of 60 millions acres guaranteed to them in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The  Dann sisters have endured steady harassment from the Bureau of Land Management and squared off against international gold mining corporations and the nuclear industry. Their courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of indigenous peoples won them the 1993 Alternative Nobel Prize and the International Right Livelihood Award.

2008 FESTIVAL
89 min.
Writer/director David Novack examines the troubling forces behind the conflict between the coal industry and residents of West Virginia. Confronted by a U.S. energy policy and West Virginia government that critics say genuflects to the coal industry, local activists watch the nation praise coal without regard to the devastation caused by its extraction. Faced with toxic ground water, the obliteration of 1.4 million acres of mountains, and a government that appeases industry, residents of coal counties take their battles beyond the Mountain State’s borders to the halls of power and centers of commerce and culture.