Monthly Archives: May 2024

Elaine McMillion Sheldon: KING COAL & Josh Margolin: THELMA

This is our final Radio Goes to the Movies series before the 2024 Mendocino Film Festival, in which we feature two films that are screening today in the Matheson. First we speak with Elaine McMillion Sheldon about her film, KING COAL, and in the 2nd segment, we speak with Josh Margolin about his film, THELMA, which begins at 25:16.

You might think, oh I don’t want to see a film about coal, but this is a very artistic, lyrical tapestry of a place and people. KING COAL meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it has created. This is a spectacularly beautiful and deeply moving immersion into Central Appalachia, where coal is not just a resource, but a way of life.While deeply situated in the communities under the reign of King Coal, where Elaine McMillion Sheldon has lived and worked her entire life, the film transcends time and place, emphasizing the ways in which all are connected through an immersive mosaic of belonging, ritual, myth, and imagination. Emerging from the long shadows of the coal mines, KING COAL untangles the pain from the beauty, and illuminates the innately human capacity for change.We spoke with her via Skype on May 28th, 2024.

Inspired by a real-life experience of director Josh Margolin’s own grandmother, THELMA puts a clever spin on movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, shining the spotlight on an elderly grandmother as an unlikely action hero. With infectious humor, Margolin employs the familiar tropes of the action genre in hilarious, age-appropriate ways to tackle aging with agency. In the first leading film role of her 70-year career, Squibb portrays the strong-willed Thelma with grit and determination, demonstrating that she is more than capable of taking care of business — despite what her daughter Gail (Parker Posey), son-in-law Alan (Clark Gregg), or grandson Danny might believe.

This edition ends with excerpts from Congressman Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) New York Times piece from Nay 29, 2024 headlined, How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/opinion/alito-thomas-recuse-trump-jan-6.html

The Supreme Court Is Going Off the Rails. It’s About to Get So Much Worse. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/supreme-court-going-off-the-rails-amicus-end-of-term-june.html

Yael Bridge THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD & Lois Lipman FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO

This edition of Radio Goes to the Movies features two films that are screening at the Mendocino Film Festival, THE BIG SCARY ‘S’ WORD and FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO.

In our first segment, we spoke with Yael Bridge, who produced the award winning, Left on Purpose, and Saving Capitalism, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in Business and Economics. She was also the director of productions at Inequality Media, making viral videos that tackle complex political issues and gained over 100 million views in 2016. She lives in Oakland, where she works as a filmmaker and film educator. Her film, THE BIG SCARY ‘S’ WORD, which she directed and produced is screening on Sunday June 2nd, at the Matheson.

In our second segment, we spoke with Lois Lipman about her film, FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO, which tells the story that the blockbuster film, Oppenheimer, leaves out – about the nuclear victims of the first nuclear detonation in history, who lived in the villages around the Trinity test site. They were not warned, evacuated, nor informed after the explosion of any danger, much less protected from the fallout. The interview with Lois begins at 27:30.

For many years Lois Lipman researched, developed, and field produced films for 60 Minutes worldwide —from India, Gaza, Guantanamo Bay to Paris and Saint Petersburg. Her films won numerous awards including an Emmy and a Peabody. Til Death Do Us Part: Dowry Deaths in India won Best Documentary of the Year from American Women in Television and Radio, and lead to the first arrests and convictions for this crime against women in India.
After Lois left 60 Minutes, she worked internationally for the BBC, Channel 4 – UK, and PBS. After teaching at the University of Maryland, Lois returned to her home in New Mexico, where she committed to making FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO, a film that exposes the injustices suffered, and continuing to be suffered, for almost 8 decades by New Mexican Downwinders. It screens on Sunday, June 2, at 10:30a.m. at The Coast Cinemas.

Special thanks to Paul Pino for permission to include his anthem, “It Ain’t Over Til We Win,” from FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO.

Mike Johnson Urged to Advance Bipartisan Bill For Nuclear Test Victims https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-johnson-nuclear-test-victims_n_66462dcee4b098d9bd48f148

Maureen Gosling: The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane/ Sabrine Keane & Kate Dumke: Preconceived

It’s the merry month of May, and that means it’s time for our “Radio Goes to the Movies” editions of Forthright Radio. For the past 16 years, we have devoted our programs in the month before the Mendocino Film Festival to featuring interviews with filmmakers whose films are screening the first week in June at the Festival. Today, we feature two interviews. Our first is with Maureen Gosling about her wonderful film, THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE.

Maureen Gosling, director and editor of THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE – the folk, blues and jazz singer, international social justice activist and recording star, wife, mother of three, feminist, record producer, unwavering maverick and general good troublemaker on the road when she was 90 years old. She is turning 97 on Sunday, May 12th! THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE is an underground history of a singer-agitator, whose unbending principles guide her through notoriety, obscurity, and finally, music legend.

In concert with son Jesse Cahn

In the second segment, an interview with Sabrine Keane and Kate Dumke, directors of the documentary, PRECONCEIVED, which investigates the question: Where does someone turn these days when facing an unplanned pregnancy? It’s an insightful look into the rise of crisis pregnancy centers proliferating across the United States, and explores the complex role of deception, finances, faith, and privacy…

Barbara Dane’s songs, which end this edition, Working People’s Blues and Resistance Hymn, are included courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recording, with special thanks to Will Griffin for permission to do so.

Articles pertinent to these interviews:

Texas man asks court for permission to investigate former partner’s out-of-state abortion https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2024/05/03/texas-man-asks-court-for-permission-to-investigate-former-partners-out-of-state-abortion/

Dallas church opens pregnancy center with abortion resources https://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/2024/04/29/dallas-church-opens-pregnancy-center-with-abortion-resources/

Study Links Abortion Restrictions and Intimate Partner Homicide https://www.commondreams.org/news/abortion-bans-kill-women?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=73db0d213b-Top+News%3A+Wed.+5%2F8%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D