LABOR DAY 2007

Here at the 1913 Massacre Film Project, we hope that you’ll take some time this Labor Day weekend to celebrate and commemorate America’s working people — all working people, yourself included.

Labor Day doesn’t have to be just about the union movement of a bygone era. Don’t let history or the politicians or organized labor or the media take the day away from you. Make Labor Day an occasion to reflect on the value of the work you do, every day, and to think about how you can do more work that has real and lasting value.

A good place to start is where we started on our film — with Woody Guthrie’s music. Albums like Hard Travelin’, Buffalo Skinners and Struggle (all available on iTunes) will take you where you need to go.

And with the mine disaster at Crandall Canyon, Utah, still in the news, the events and characters Woody Guthrie wrote about in those sad, celebratory, funny, tragic, boss-bashing, union-building songs like Miner’s Song, Waiting at the Gate, The Dying Miner, or even 1913 Massacre  — the inspiration for our film about Calumet, Michigan — may not seem so remote.

If we’ve learned one thing in the course of our work on the Calumet film, it’s that the past is always undeniably present.

 

Sometimes you don’t even have to go looking for it: it makes itself known in unexpected ways. Listening to Woody Guthrie on Labor Day, or any other day, is also a way of letting the past assert itself, and of connecting your world and your work with the world in which your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents worked.

Those are the kind of connections people in places like Calumet make all the time. And now we are making them, too, as we continue to work on the Calumet film. To date, as some of you know, we have completed principal photography — over 300 hours of footage, filmed in Calumet and with musicians from around the country — and we have finished cutting the first act of the three-act, musical documentary film we plan. Here are two scenes from the first act that seem especially appropriate for Labor Day. Just hit the play button to start.

Now, we are raising funds to finish editing the film. There are a few, highly competitive grants we're applying for, and we're always on the lookout for new sources of financing. But you can play a part, too. We want to use the power of the Internet — and the power of you — to gather 400 individual contributions of 25, 50, 100 & 250 dollars (or more!) by December 24th, 2007, the anniversary of the Italian Hall disaster. That’s 100 contributions per month, from now until December.

Our film honors ordinary people, their stories and their songs. And now we want ordinary, working people like you to help us see the film to completion. Please give if you can. To participate in round 1 of our micro-financing campaign, simply make a tax-deductible contribution to the Center for Independent Documentary (CID) today. You can make a donation right on the CID website. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button that says make a donation. And be sure to pass this link along to as many people as you can: friends who love Woody Guthrie’s music, or who have an interest in independent film, people who have roots in the de-industrialized towns of the American Midwest, or other friends and associates who just know and appreciate the value of doing good work in the world.

We hope you will help us reach our December goal. We’ll be sure to give an update on our website.
Many thanks in advance, and best wishes for Labor Day 2007 — your day.

Louis Galdieri & Ken Ross
co-producers, 1913 Massacre Film Project