A locally produced documentary project has been accepted into two film-festivals.

Minersville, a short documentary produced by local Salina Media Connection filmmakers Tom Fleming and Greg Stephens and Method Productions, Wichita,  was selected to be screened at the Great Plains Film Festival on September 5.  The event was held at the Rodeo Cinema in Oklahoma City.

Additionally, an upcoming screening of Minersville will take place on the weekend of October 3-4 at the Pikes Peak docuFEST in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

According to the producers, Minersville has been shown to sell out crowds at the Salina Art Center Cinema and in museums in Concordia and Belleville.  It was also previously featured during a Kansas Anthropological Association archaeological event in Lecompton, Kansas.

“We have applied to a few other film festivals”, said executive producer Tom Fleming, “and we are excited about the opportunity to showcase the film further.”

Minersville is the story of an abandoned coal mining town northeast of Concordia, bordering the counties of Cloud and Republic County,  which started in 1869 when coal was discovered, and eventually over 500 miners worked 28 mines. The town had two churches, a labor organization, a retail store, a border house, a post office, and a school, which provided lignite coal to a multi-county region including southern Nebraska. The last mine closed in 1940.

Kansas Humanities, the Community Foundations in Cloud and Republic County, and individual sponsors supported the documentary. Salina Media Connection and Method Productions, Wichita, created the documentary. Archaeologist Debi Aaron, Dr.  Ed Glenn, Conrad Trost, and Tom Fleming were featured in the story.