Burning the Future: Coal in America

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.