Ever since Ken and I finished 1913 Massacre, I’ve been watching and learning about the resurgence of mining around Lake Superior. I’ve done some research, talked to some good people, and made a few informal scouting trips to the Lake Superior region, to see if I might perhaps produce a…
“They Try to Create Despair Among the Miners”
One of the small treasures I brought back to New York from Lake Superior is Hannu Leppanen and Daniel Schneider’s 2013 letterpress edition of Tyomies, the Finnish workingman’s newspaper published during the strike of 1913. I’ve mentioned the project here before. Daniel set up his Chandler & Price Pilot Press…
First TV Broadcast of 1913 Massacre – Labor Day, 2013
We’re very happy to announce that 1913 Massacre will air on Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) over the 2013 Labor Day holiday. This is the first television broadcast of the film. Showtimes: On tpt Channel 2.1: Monday, September 2nd, at 11:00PM and Tuesday, September 3rd at 5:00AM. On the Minnesota Channel (locally tptMN Channel 2.2): Monday at 12:00am, 6:00AM, 12:00PM, and 6:00PM The online…
Where Is Calumet?
It’s uncanny how this notice from a 1913 newspaper anticipates the opening scene of 1913 Massacre: “Where is Calumet?” That is a simple question, apparently. Almost anybody will say it is a thriving city up in the country where they blow open the earth with dynamite and wrest copper there…
STRIKE!
100 years ago today, the Finnish language newspaper Työmies or The Worker announced: This morning in Michigan’s Copper region, a miner’s strike broke out which, according to information received from various locations up to this point, has stopped work in all of the mines with few exceptions. The strike that began…
Juhannus: Summer is Here
Juhannus, a midsummer celebration held near Misery Bay on the Keweenaw Peninsula, was one of the highlights of our recent screening tour of the UP. We ran into old friends and made some new ones. Accompanied by percussionist Randy Seppala, who plays bones and spoons with Johnny Perona in our…
Public Television and Public Life — A Note from the Road
We’ve just completed a short tour of the Upper Peninsula, taking 1913 Massacre from Houghton to Ontonagon to Marquette. After each screening of the film, we take questions and comments from the audience. All sorts of things come up in those conversations. People see themselves or their own town in…
Moses Called The First Strike
People from all parts of Europe made their way to Calumet at the end of the nineteenth and the start of the twentieth centuries. The copper-mining town attracted so many immigrants — Germans, Italians, Croatians, Slovenians, Cornish, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians — that it’s sometimes jokingly referred to as “the smelting…
Roy Stafford Reviews 1913 Massacre
Roy Stafford has written a lengthy review of 1913 Massacre — which screened today at the Bradford International Film Festival in the UK — on The Case for Global Film. His thoughtful review touches on a number of themes and questions the film raises, and draws parallels with other films…
Frank Christian, 1952-2012
We were shocked and saddened to learn that Frank Christian, who wrote and played music for our film, passed away on Christmas Eve. We came to Frank through a friend who was taking guitar lessons from him. We needed someone to play some riffs on “1913 Massacre,” which Frank did,…