MTFF Presents
Matewan
Sponsored by:
Missoula Area Labor Council, Union Club
Missoula Area Labor Council, Union Club
MTFF Presents
Montana Film Festival Presents a monthly offering in modern & classic independent cinema, culminating in a 4-day festival every October. Keep up with MTFF at montanafilmfestival.org.
Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners’ struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. When Matewan’s miners go on strike, organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper, in his film debut) arrives to help them, uniting workers white and black, Appalachia-born and immigrant, while urging patience in the face of the coal company’s violent provocations. With a crackerjack ensemble cast—including James Earl Jones, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham—and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Haskell Wexler, Matewan taps into a rich vein of Americana with painstaking attention to local texture, issuing an impassioned cry for justice that still resounds today.
Sponsored by Missoula Area Labor Council and The Union Club!
Montana Film Festival Presents a monthly offering in modern & classic independent cinema, culminating in a 4-day festival every October. Keep up with MTFF at montanafilmfestival.org.
Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners’ struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. When Matewan’s miners go on strike, organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper, in his film debut) arrives to help them, uniting workers white and black, Appalachia-born and immigrant, while urging patience in the face of the coal company’s violent provocations. With a crackerjack ensemble cast—including James Earl Jones, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham—and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Haskell Wexler, Matewan taps into a rich vein of Americana with painstaking attention to local texture, issuing an impassioned cry for justice that still resounds today.
Sponsored by Missoula Area Labor Council and The Union Club!
Cast: Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell
Director: John Sayles
Written by: John Sayles
Rated: PG-13
Duration: 133 min
Released: 1987
Genre: Drama
MTFF Presents
Matewan
