The Last Mountain

The film is told from the point of view of environmental litigator and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and several activists including Maria Gunnoe (Goldman Prize winner), Bo Webb (Purpose Prize winner), Ed Wiley and West Virginia based environmental attorney Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Mountain Advocates (formerly the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.)

The film also follows the efforts of young members of Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice who participate in acts of civil disobedience to stop coal mining all together, surface and underground: chaining themselves to mining equipment, climbing giant cranes, and camping out at the tops of trees in mid-winter to stop Massey Energy from demolishing the mountain.

Experts including Alan Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry & the Environment Gus Speth, and Vanity Fair writer and Coal River author Michael Shnayerson, put the story in political and environmental context.

The Last Mountain begins by introducing local activist Maria Gunnoe, who describes how the hills surrounding her home in the town of Bob White, WV have been "turned inside out" and demolished, stripping away forest cover and topsoil and leaving less permeable rock in its place.

The film takes viewers to the town of Prenter, West Virginia, in the Coal River Valley where a citizen-turned-activist Jennifer Hall-Massey explains that six of her immediate neighbors have died of brain tumors and the only thing they all have in common is well water.

Over time, the wind farm would provide more jobs to the community, and on day-one it would pay more taxes to the county than the coal strip mine, Scarbro explains.

Also, to fit into their narrative, the filmmakers ignore the fact that a major rule making change that helped mountaintop removal continue was started by the Clinton administration, not by George W.

[4] On May 16, 2011, React to Film screened The Last Mountain at the SoHo House in Manhattan, NY and moderated a Q&A with producer Clara Bingham.

", saying for her reasoning that "The movie's power is undercut by the overemphasized presence of celebrity traveling environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr".

Club's Sam Adams wrote that "[the film] effectively documents the horror show that is mountaintop-removal mining and the political maneuvering—much of it furthered by the Bush administration’s gutting of environmental legislation—that enables quick fixes while concealing the true cost of dirty energy".

[8] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times had praised the director, saying that "If Mr. Haney sometimes struggles to find focus, he has no trouble locating heroes, including the doggedly energetic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a slew of stalwart locals and fearless outsiders".

[9] Following screening of The Last Mountain at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, James Greenberg of The Hollywood Reporter also praised the director saying that "[he] makes no bones about trying to be fair and balanced.

[10] Variety's Robert Koehler also had positive reaction toward the film, writing "The coal industry receives a proper thumping in the righteously angry activist doc".