BELFAST — The Peace and Social Justice Forum/Waldo County will show the film Mossville: When Great Trees Falls, on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023, at 6 p.m., in the Abbott Room, Belfast Free Library. This documentary tells the story of a centuries-old black community in Louisiana laid waste by a chemical company, and of the residents who refuse to leave.

Mossville, a small predominately black community in Southwestern Louisiana, was founded by formerly enslaved people in 1790. It endured and thrived through the civil war, Jim Crow, and industrialization to become a self-sustaining town of a few thousand residents into the 20th century. But in this film, it looks like a ghost town.

Award winning filmmaker Alex Glustrom’s documentary focuses on one Mossville resident, a “sort of accidental activist” named Stacey Ryan, who refuses to leave after the town is decimated by the energy and chemical company called Sasol. Glenn Kenny’s NYT review reports the film shows “the material toxicity of racism” and invites us to ask “is this a case of environmental racism?”

“Join us to widen our perspective on the climate crisis we are all facing, because we are all in this together,” said Peace and Social Justice Forum/Waldo County, in a news release.

Free and open to all.

Peace and Social Justice Forum/Waldo County. FMI: peace.and.justice.waldo@gmail.com