In 1962, when a trash fire ignited a coal seam beneath Centralia, Pa., there were 1,600 people living in the thriving mining town. The fire could have been extinguished for about a thousand bucks. Four decades later, the fire still burns and there are less than a dozen residents. The federal and state governments have spent tens of millions of dollars to buy out homes and businesses. A thousand buildings have been removed, leaving a ghost town of streets with a few scattered houses. Everyone who once lived there has been relocated—almost everyone. Among the hardy few who remain—mostly because they want to live their last days there—one young man whose entire life has been one of watching the exodus, refuses to give up the town.
The story of Centralia is told in the film The Town That Was, an odd and offbeat tale about the affection the place’s residents have for their hometown and the pain of leaving it. The reveals one man’s unusual obsession with keeping the town alive as he becomes the caretaker of a changed landscape and the guardian of the town’s rites and rituals—knowing well that his town’s fate is ultimately out of his hands. Juxtaposed against historical footage of a thriving town are the contemporary scenes of a lone man riding a lawn mower, keeping tidy the yards of several neighbors whose houses are long gone. At Christmastime, he keeps up the tradition of hanging lights from utility poles so that former residents can drive down memory lane.
It’s a remarkable film because it’s true. And it’s the type of only-in-America story that has helped the American Conservation Film Festival emerge as one of the top regional film festivals in its genre. The festival plays November 1–4 in Shepherdstown, with opening night at the Opera House in town and subsequent days presented at the National Conservation Training Center. Admission for Thursday night’s films is $6; other events are free, but donations are accepted (and much appreciated) at the door.
ACFF is more than critter films—it’s a real insight into the entire human-environment relationship at an exact moment in time.
Consider Red Velvet. In Southern Siberia’s Altai mountains, where maral deer live in massive protected reserves, a culture leads an almost subsistence existence by harvesting the velvet antlers. They are cut off in a bloody ritual to provide a prized aphrodisiac to the Korean marketplace. At first blush, the harvest might seem cruel, but in a modern turn of events, the preservation of the species depends upon the tradition of the harvest. Without it, the maral would be hunted to extinction in a matter of years.
Then there is Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa, which depicts a closed society living in a remote patch of ground in the Southwest. They have to truck in their water, make their own power (those that have it all, anyway) and create an evolving civil code that amounts to, mostly, “Keep your hands off my stuff so I don’t have to kill you.” They are Gulf War vets, teenage runaways, and deranged and disillusioned recluses who live in handmade houses constructed largely of the scrap and detritus the rest of America throws away. It’s kind of a living on the land film—except their living is subsidized by charity from the do-gooders that, in the end, would get no respect from this band. Things get interesting when those Marxist vegetarians show up. It’s weird, it’s real, and, in the strangest indescribable way, it’s fitting for a conservation film festival.
One of the great crowd pleasers of the festival is likely to be Blowing Up Paradise. Think Inspector Cluseau narrating a no-nukes documentary about French A-Bomb and nuclear testing in French Polynesia. It’s got the hip-horns and strings soundtrack, 1960s French-style Jackie O hairdos, and a group of Tahitian radicals fight for their homeland’s natural and cultural heritage by forming an anti-nuke resistance cell. What makes it all the more mind-blowing is that the test, which violated the International Nuclear Test Band Treaty, continued into the 1990s. Who said environmentalists have no sense of humor?
Another highlight of the festival is the student film competition, which draws entry from all over the world. This year’s entries include a stunning painted film from New Zealand, Conversing with Aotearoa, that explores the connection between people and wilderness, and a roadtrip film about two guys driving an old car across country—the car being powered with nothing but used fry oil that they get from restaurants along the way. On their travels they interview Yoko Ono, Noam Chomsky, Morgan Freeman, and Tommy Chong, among others.
ACFF also presents a limited number of studio releases and television programming. Charlotte’s Web, the incredibly popular film from 2006, plays twice in the Byrd Auditorium—for FREE. And Smithsonian Channel, a broadcast venture hitting the cable-net, brings two offerings. Critter Quest is a Saturday afternoon family show about finding nature’s wild things in your own backyard. And A Woman Among Wolves (2007, about a woman’s passion for wolves that leads her on a quest to study the animals in the wilds of Canada. Collecting field data, hair, DNA samples and other scientific evidence, Gudrun Pflueger has spent 6 years in search of the coast wolves of British Columbia. Some of the films are shown with viewer advisements regarding language and adult subject matter.
Consult the complete schedule at www.conservationfilm.org.
Editor’s Note: David Lillard is a founder and volunteer for the festival.
