Friday, September 4 - Labor Day weekend large screen showing of the classic film MATEWAN (1987) at Peace Center of Delaware County's Free JUST-REEL Film Series First Fridays, 7p.m., 1001Old Sproul Road, Springfield, Delaware County, PA. 
For directions and more,www.delcopeacecenter.org.  Co-sponsored by Brandywine Peace Community, 610-544-1818. Light Refreshments and after film discussion.

MATEWAN 132 minutes, Rated PG-13 
Written and Directed by John Sayles (Return of the Secaucus 7, Eight Men Out, City of Hope, The Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, Men with Guns, Silver City) Starring Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, and David Strathairn

Praised as a classic when released twenty years ago, MATEWAN is a historical drama about the beginnings of the Labor movement that holds up Leading up to the "Matewan Massacre", the film is about the bitter coal miners strike in Matewan, West Virginia against the powerful Stone Mountain Coal Company and the miners struggle to unionize. The company announces plans to cut the miners' meager wages, begins importing African-American workers as strike-breakers, and company hired-guns come to town.

Enter ex IWW member and United Mine Workers organizer, Joe Kenehan (portrayed by Chris Cooper) attempting to organize a united union and strike amidst racial hostilities, cultural distrust, and provocations by the company. Organizer Kenehan pleads in vain with the strikers to remain united and not resort to violence which would give the company reason and legal protection in its threats to crush the union and the strike.

This is a dramatization and look at the beginnings of the labor movement, of poor people trying to survive with others and across cultural boundaries, of finding a way to justice. Acclaimed over the years, MATEWAN won numerous film awards and received the 1988 Oscar for Best Cinematography (Haskell Wexler).

Variety called MATEWAN at the time of its release "...a heartfelt, straight-ahead tale of labor organizing in the coal mines of West Virginia in 1920 that runs its course like a train coming down the track..." Critic Desson Howe described the look of the film as getting "the feeling of dirt, sweat and -- despite the story's mythic intentions -- the grim grey struggle of it all."