A visual showcase of life in Pennsylvania through film and photos, without words, “NEPADOC” will take viewers on a reflective journey across the northeastern part of the state, including parts of Potter County.
The documentary, directed by David Heineman, was created by a small team of filmmakers with a passion for beautiful cinematography, regional identity, meditative soundscapes and critical engagement.
A screening of the full-length feature film will take place at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum, at 1 p.m. Saturday followed by a question and answer session with the filmmaker. The documentary is about intersections of environment, industry and identity in Northeastern Pennsylvania over the past 300 years. The museum is one of the places featured in the documentary.
Inspired by non-verbal documentary film landmarks such as “Koyaanisqatsi” and “Baraka,” producers noted, “NEPADOC” blends 4K cinematography, local historical footage “and a sweeping score into a dizzying and contemplative meditation on culture, place and public memory.”
“Films like Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ and Ron Fricke’s ‘Baraka’ are noted for their ability to artfully bring global perspectives to localized audiences,” Heineman said. “‘NEPADOC’ tries to do this in reverse, highlighting the universal themes found in the localized story of this one region of the world.”
“Until now, you’ve never really seen the world you live in,” reads the 1982 “Koyaanisqatsi” poster. “Koyaanisqatsi,” meaning life out of balance in the Hopi language, was a cinematic first in that it introduced a new, non-narrative documentary that relied heavily on accompanying music and photography to tell the story. Critics hailed this work as “a fusion of image and sound.” Ten years later, the “Koyaanisqatsi” cinematographer released “Baraka,” another non-verbal, documentary film with a focus on slow motion and time-lapse photography, with many shots from foreign countries.
These two films inspired Heineman to take on this project, he said.
“The original inspiration for ‘NEPADOC’ springs from my years of living and teaching in Northeast Pennsylvania. The juxtaposition of the region’s beautiful landscapes against some of its economically and environmentally decimated communities create striking visual parallels between NEPA’s own unique story and those of many other communities across the globe,” he said. “I was interested in using the techniques available to nonverbal documentary filmmaking to create a historical narrative of the region that offers an argument about how industry, environment and identity have intersected in ways that are recognizable by any audience that has spent time in places like those showcased in the film.”
Northeastern Pennsylvania is a region that has been significantly shaped by the imprint of the lumber industry in the 18th and 19th century, the anthracite coal industry in the 19th and early 20th century, and the natural gas and renewable energy industries in recent decades. In each of these periods, discovery of energy resources resulted in a series of boom-bust cycles that saw enormous wealth and wealth disparity, newly flourishing immigrant cultures tempered by hateful rhetoric and violence, and significant industrial undertakings with long-lasting environmental and economic impacts.
Producers emphasized “NEPADOC” highlights the resilience of a people who, surrounded by the insular beauty of Appalachia, maintain a well-earned mistrust of authority, a fierce sense of independence and an often-tenuous relationship with their own past. In this way, they noted, the film showcases the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth in the region, revealing that the story of this place is a story shared by many places across the globe.
Filmmakers focused the camera’s attention on the many beautiful natural landscapes found throughout the region, on the ruins of the bygone lumber and coal industries that defined the region’s history, on the hustle and bustle of contemporary life and on the many faces of those who continue to define northeast Pennsylvania’s character and community.
This is the debut feature film for Heineman, whose family roots in Northeastern Pennsylvania date back several generations. He is a professor of communication studies at Bloomsburg University, where he teaches courses in media studies, criticism and public advocacy. A micro-budget film at $10,000, “NEPADOC” was made possible in part through a grant from Bloomsburg’s Center for Community Research and Consulting.
Production staff worked closely with state museums, local historical societies and regional cultural groups, and traveled to many heritage sites, remote areas of the Pennsylvania Wilds, abandoned and active energy production operations, and across more than a dozen counties in northeast Pennsylvania to capture the images displayed in the documentary.
The experimental documentary is an official selection of the 2023 Black Bear Film Festival. Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVhLj6k8J0
