'Gasland' includes Warren.
Not only is the city part of the vast territory sitting atop the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas", but it is also a stop on award winning filmmaker Josh Fox's promotional tour.
At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Fox will bring his movie to Struthers Library Theatre. Doors open at 1 p.m. and after the film, Fox and a panel of experts will talk about natural gas development and answer questions.
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Josh Fox
"In advance of the premier I wanted to do a whistlestop tour," Fox said. "We're going to have the film, we're going to have a talk afterward."
The movie reflects Fox's travels after he was offered a sum of about $100,000 to lease the subsurface rights to his northeastern Pennsylvania property.
He didn't jump at the chance for the money.
"My area is a pristine area, a watershed," Fox said. "A lot of people depend on that area."
"I was concerned about any industrial development that was on the way," he said.
So, he went to take a look at other areas that had been through gas development and found that what had been proposed to him as an environmentally-friendly process was anything but.
"I found the place completely torn to pieces," he said. "People's water was contaminated. It was bizarre they could light their water on fire."
"This is going on across America," he said.
Through 34 states, Fox made a documentary. "I found the same thing everywhere I went," he said. Eleven states are featured in the film.
It was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival.
"Sundance Film Festival, that's like the premier film festival in America," Fox said. "Especially for documentaries."
"We came in there with a film that we knew was made from the heart," Fox said.
It received a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize.
"It was beyond our expectation to win," he said. "That was incredible."
'Gasland' will appear on HBO on Monday, June 21.
Sunday's screening is part of the Boonies International Film Festival. "I'm very excited to bring it to Warren," Fox said. "I love the idea of the Boonies Film Festival. You're lucky you have this amazing guy Jeff Clark."
The Warren stop is one of 21 throughout Pennsylvania and New York,
"Gasland is its own territory with its own rules," Fox said. "The gas company owns you. It's its own country that seems to have different laws than the rest of America."
"We want to get the community in the conversation," Fox said. "We're trying to be informative. Nobody's got the real facts."