Part Two, “Troubled Water” shows at The Dairy Barn

A documentary film and photo exhibit with narratives from interviews is no small undertaking. To accomplish such a project with a budget of zero makes it even more of a feat. This wasn’t at all like when “Sommersby” came to town in the early nineties. These filmmakers have a cause, and local families hosted them in their homes, and fed them, and drove them around the county.

“Troubled Waters” is screening Thursday night, January 19^th, doors opening at 6:30 at the Dairy Barn in Warm Springs. It is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served. A professional photographer, and Little Valley resident, Lee Brauer described the beginning of the collaboration with Barb Adams and others, that brought the show to reality.

“We started talking immediately, ‘What can we do? How can I put my talent to work?’”

Barb has activist experience, and had learned even more about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through the Richmond Interfaith Climate Justice League.

“I got connected with Julian McBain and Sam Wright who both go to VCU, and Maria Dehart goes to UVA.

Sam and Julian and I had spoken at length about the process, and some of the words that we would use to describe for us going into to film, and one of the top three was ‘respect and compassion” for those people we’d be interviewing.”

“Whatever we’d talked about or thought about before we did our interviews really was affected deeply by our very first interview with John and David Cowden. And when we finished that interview we looked at each other, and we were all struck by how deeply affected we were by listening to people’s stories in a way that we wouldn’t have known, we couldn’t have known before we did it.”

So the process just became for us, a real honor, to be the recipient of these very personal stories and perspectives that people shared.”

There are plenty of familiar faces in the movie and photograph collection, and the landscapes are unmistakably these mountains and river valleys. As we’ve all heard, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and these pictures will speak for themselves.

Again, Barb Adams on what the creators of “Troubled Waters” resolved,

“Let’s do beautiful photography, and then explain how these photographs and these images, and these people in these photographs would be affected by this pipeline. And so we started with what we had, which was a great thing.

I knew some things about doing interviews, and loved the idea of telling stories, which I think are a very personal way to make connections with people about issues that they know nothing about.”

There is such a vast supply of information and misinformation surrounding pipelines in general, that “Troubled Waters” does offer a view unlike any other.

The local groups who organized to bring it here are:

Natural Retreats; Voices from Bath; Hot Springs Garden Club; Warm Springs Valley Garden Club; and Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA). With questions please call, 540-839-5846.