DocHouse: Harlan County USA

Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning HARLAN COUNTY USA (1976) unflinchingly documents a gruelling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town.

With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police and company thugs.

Featuring a haunting soundtrack - with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning and Florence Reece - the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.