"Discovering Chatham" is an ongoing series of posts on the interesting people, places, events and news from northern Chatham County, published on our blog every Wednesday. You can read previous "Discovering Chatham" entries by clicking here. Leave us a comment and let us know what else about Chatham County you'd like to discover!

How many films are made within 100 miles of Chatham County? More than you’d probably guess, as evidenced by ChathamArts’ 100-Mile Film Series, which was launched in June 2008.

“The idea is catching on to this whole local sustainability concept that this community has really embraced,” says Linda Booker, a filmmaker and ChathamArts board member who founded the series along with board president Gilda McDaniel. “There’s such a pool of local talent to work with.”This month's featured film by Durham's Rex Miller was named Best Documentary at The Malibu International Film Festival and follows a Ugandan tennis player as he embarks on a new life in the U.S.

Thanks to the program, documentaries, narrative and independent films involving crews, subjects and/or locations within 100 miles of Pittsboro are shown the last Tuesday evening of the month at the Fearrington Barn in Fearrington Village. Filmmakers usually attend the screenings and engage attendees in a discussion about their work. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students, with proceeds benefiting ChathamArts and the Youth Documentary Arts program it hopes to launch, which will pair filmmaking mentors with kids so that they can create video and photo documentaries that would connect them to their community.

Last month, I attended the screening of With These Hands, which followed the last days of the Hooker Furniture Factory in Martinsville, Virginia, in the spring of 2007. Filmmaker Matthew Barr, who is also a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, talked to workers who had dedicated decades of their lives to their craft. As they prepared to lose their jobs, many of them also struggled to keep their identity. Following the factory shutdown, some of them were lucky enough to find another job in their field. Others went back to school or took retail jobs. Some retired.

Barr was also given access to Clyde Hooker Jr., a man who blew the whistle as a young boy on Hooker’s first day in 1924. He had always been known for taking care of his employees, but had to make the heart-wrenching decision to close the facility as overseas competition increased.

Barr says that he made the film to give a voice to factory workers across the country and honor the dedication they brought to their work. The touching 79-minute film moved at a slow pace. We watched workers meticulously feed wood through machines. Barr succeeded in going beyond the headlines and presenting a “day in the life” of these craftspeople, who are a dying breed. His film also makes a greater point about the impact of globalization on manufacturing in the United States – a sad fact that’s become all too familiar to the American worker this year.

More great films are on the horizon for the series. “I’m not worried about running out of films,” says Booker. “We’ll keep this going for awhile.”

Upcoming Films:

June 30, 7:30pm: Somay Ku: A Uganda Tennis Story. Patrick Olobo, Uganda's top-ranked tennis player, was four when LRA rebels decimated his family's quiet life in northern Uganda, forcing them to abandon their ancestral land. The film by Durham’s Rex Miller accompanies Olobo during his last weeks in Uganda and first two years in the U.S., as his new life unfolds in unforeseen ways. 

July 28, 7:30pm: Summer Shorts. Submit your 5-10 minute short film by June 26 (click here for entry form), and it may be shown during this two-hour celebration of cool, eclectic video projects from local filmmakers.

August 25, 7:30pm: Rocaterrania. Monster Road Producer/Director Brett Ingram's latest feature length documentary explores the secret world of scientific illustrator and visionary artist Renaldo Kuhler.

September 29, 7:30pm: The Siamese Connection. Durham filmmaker Josh Gibson documents the lives of Cheng and Eng Bunker, the conjoined twins who became world famous as part of P.T. Barnum's circus and eventually settled in North Carolina.