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…

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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…

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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…

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People’s History is Alive

I love this tweet: People’s history alive and well: 1913 Massacre, doc film by Ken Ross & @lvgaldieri inspired by Woody Guthrie’s song ow.ly/jkO4k — Voices (@vph) March 22, 2013 This is from the Twitter account of Voices of a People’s History. I suspect it was posted partly in response…

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For International Women’s Day – A Sketch from the Cutting Room Floor

This is an early sketch of a scene in 1913 Massacre that ended up on the cutting room floor. It features some excerpts from an interview with Helen Winter. At the time we interviewed her, Helen was in her 90s and, as she herself told us, she felt her life…

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Talking 1913 Massacre at the New School for Social Research Doc Studies

Here’s the video of a Q & A we did back in September at the New School for Social Research about the making of 1913 Massacre. We both loved being back in the classroom and hope to do lots more of this in 2013. Ken Ross and Louis V. Galdieri…

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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,…

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It’s 1913 Again In Michigan

I’ve run across a few people drawing connections between the Italian Hall disaster and the school shooting yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut (e.g., here). Maybe listening to Woody’s song helps people register Newtown’s loss, or the horror of Newtown helps us understand a little better what it must have been like…

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Q & A at Rivertown Film Society

Here is the Q & A we did with Nora Guthrie at Rivertown Film Society in Nyack, NY on October 3rd, 2012. The discussion was moderated by Daniel Wolff. Many thanks to Matthew Seig and everybody at Rivertown Film for hosting the event. Directors Louis Galdieri & Ken Ross with…

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The Circle is Complete

A quick update before we leave town this morning. We showed the film again yesterday afternoon and evening at the Calumet Theatre. The Saturday matinee crowd may have been the biggest of the three. About 1500 people came to see 1913 Massacre over the course of the weekend. As Ken…

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