We are creating a longer documentary based on the stories gathered through the “Mill Stories” project. A fine cut of the film is currently being screened at special events and festivals. We hope to make a finished version of the project available publicly next year. Keep an eye on this site for upcoming screenings in the near future! To receive updates on the “Mill Stories” project, subscribe to our mailing list.
View a Trailer for Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point
The fine cut premiered at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore on April 10th, 2014 to a packed house. The evening also included a screening of the short film, Life after Steel, by Eric Kruszewski, a reading of Roots of Steel by its author, Deborah Rudacille, and a discussion with former mill workers, Mike Lewis, Addie Loretta Houston Smith, Chris MacLarion, and Bobby Currin, moderated by Bill Barry (former Director of Labor Studies, CCBC Dundalk). You can view the discussion here.
In addition Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point was screened at the “Deindustrialization and Its Aftermath: Class, Culture, and Resistance” conference in Montreal in May.
On May 28th, the full, fine cut was screened was also screened for members of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), which was held at the United Auto Workers hall in East Baltimore. The film helped to spark memories for some audience members; LeRoy McClelland, Sr., noted that his wife once jokingly asked him if he had a second family, a question to which he replied yes. He emphasized that his fellow co-workers down at the mill were his other family.
Earlier in the month, an excerpt of Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point was screened at Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland during the exploratory workshop: On the Changing Representation of Nature in the Trans-industrial city, 1970- present. The two-day meeting brought together scholars from a diverse array of fields – environmental science, art history, philosophy, urban planning, and anthropology, among others – to examine and discuss the changing perception, construction, and symbolism of natural elements in an expanding urban texture.
Selections from the Mill Stories project were recently screened at the 2nd International Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) in Canberra, Australia (December 2-4), and the American Anthropological Association meeting in Washington, DC (December 3-7), which included a screening of the fine cut documentary film at the Society of Visual Anthropology Film Festival on Saturday, December 6th.