Not A Game

UPDATE 4/19:

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR SHARES AND DONATIONS!! You have all helped meet the initial goal of $2,000!! I have been so humbled and heartened by the many people who stepped up and have offered encouragement and financial contributions. Your support has been invaluable to the work thus far.

As some of you may have heard I was arrested while filming a pipeline protest in October of 2018. Thankfully the charges have finally been dropped but the ordeal took resources and time away from the work. I am continuing to raise funds to help finance a shorter cut of the film to help bring on more backing and get the word out while the communities continue to show up in force. Independent filmmaking is a labor of love, and I'm driven every single day by the efforts I've witnessed and been able to document during this project. 

Please continue to share with anyone who you think may find hope or heart in this story. The work continues.

With gratitude,
Laura 

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'Not A Game' is a documentary film which follows communities in Southwest Virginia as they work to stop construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Over a period of three months, ten separate tree-sits and aerial blockades were put up in order to prevent tree felling along the proposed route. Support camps, legal trainings and other direct actions from community members resulted in violent arrests and surveillance from local and national state agencies. This film is an intimate view of the legacy of resistance from the edges of Appalachia, where environmental and economic extraction has become commonplace. As corporate relationships are solidified with local governments, the question of what is public and what is private stirs up complicated relationships with a very American history, that Virginia in particular has often erased. 

After a year of filming, production continues by following the  communities and individuals who will be impacted by the pipeline as well as those who are dealing with ongoing legal cases related to their efforts. This funding will also allow the director, Laura Saunders, to seek out other avenues of financial support, and collaborators. Laura is an Appalachian photographer and filmmaker who grew up in Blacksburg, VA, another town in the path of the pipeline. Your support will help to support her travels thus far, hire more crew, pay for items like insurance and gear as well as offer an important foundation to bring to other potential funders. Any amount of contribution or shares will help this goal be realized, and help the film be created at the highest possible standard so that it can reach others who may be facing these kinds of threats, elsewhere. All your support, in whatever form, is sincerely appreciated.

Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon, a District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, stated that the tree-sitters were treating the situation "like a game". Please help history record that it is not, and never was.

To see more of Laura's work: click here