Buffalo Creek: DVD Film Set

Film Description

See both "Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man" and "Buffalo Creek Revisited" on this companion DVD set featuring both documentaries. In 1972 a coal-waste dam owned by the Pittston Company collapsed at the head of a crowded hollow in southern West Virginia. A wall of sludge, debris, and water tore through the valley below, leaving in its wake 125 dead and 4,000 homeless. Interviews with survivors, representatives of union and citizen’s groups, and officials of the Pittston Company are juxtaposed with actual footage of the flood and scenes of the ensuing devastation. As reasons for the disaster are sought out and examined, evidence mounts that company officials knew of the hazard in advance of the flood, and that the dam was in violation of state and federal regulations. The Pittston Company, however, continued to deny any wrongdoing, maintaining that the disaster was an “act of God.” In 2005 Buffalo Creek Flood was inducted to the National Film Registry, an annual list of 25 films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to the United States. Filmed ten years after the flood, Buffalo Creek Revisited looks at the second disaster on Buffalo Creek, in which the survivors’ efforts to rebuild the communities shattered by the flood are thwarted by government insensitivity and a century-old pattern of corporate control of the region’s land and resources. Through the statements of survivors, planners, politicians, psychologists, and community activists, the film explores the psychology of disaster, the importance of community, and the paradox of a poor people living in a rich land.

Screenings & Festivals

• American Film Festival
• National Film Registry
• Museum of Modern Art
• Chicago International Film Festival