WILLIAMSPORT- The Thomas T. Taber Museum of the Lycoming County Historical Society invites the public to a screening of NEPADOC, a film created by Bloomsburg University Professor David Heineman. The film will be shown on Saturday, July 8 at 2pm in the Community Room of the museum. The screening is free and open to the public.
NEPADOC is a new feature-length documentary about the intersections of environment, industry, and identity in Northeastern Pennsylvania over the past 300 years. Home to cities such as Williamsport, where the Little League World Series is held annually, and Scranton, birthplace of the sitting US president, Northeastern PA (often abbreviated “NEPA”) has long been an important industrial and cultural region of the country, and its story is one that mirrors much of the larger narrative of America itself. The idea for NEPADOC was borne out of more than a decade of research into the history and culture of the Northeastern region of Pennsylvania. Filmed over a period of eight months across more than a dozen Pennsylvania counties, NEPADOC is the first feature film by director David Heineman, whose previous work addressing the first year of life during COVID-19 (the short film The Pandemic Nature Project) has been screened at juried film festivals and international academic symposia. 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. Across these cycles, 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, 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.
NEPADOC is the debut feature film by director David Heineman. Heineman, whose family roots in Northeastern Pennsylvania date back several generations, is a professor of Communication Studies at Bloomsburg University, where he teaches courses in media studies, criticism, and public advocacy. The Taber Museum was one of Dr. Heineman’s research sites.
This screening will replace the Taber’s Society Program originally scheduled for Sunday, July 16. The Museum is located at 858 West Fourth Street, Williamsport. There is ample parking behind the museum, on the lot in back of Trinity Episcopal Church, or on the street. For further information, please contact the museum at 570.326.3326.