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My Country No More

Energy • 1h 9m

Directed by Rita Baghdadi, Jeremiah Hammerling • Documentary • 2019 • 70 minutes

Between 2011 and 2016, drilling for oil in America reached an unprecedented peak, setting off a modern day gold rush in one of the most rural communities in the country: Trenton, North Dakota. Kalie Rider and her older brother Jed are both striving to rebuild farming in their family, having suffered the foreclosure of their parents' farm during the traumatic 1980s farm crisis.

When their uncle Roger makes a decision to sell a piece of his land, it sets off a domino effect of industrialization in Trenton. Now, with the church being eyed for a diesel refinery, the community becomes riven by competing interests. While Jed faces the possibility of having to uproot his young family and move away, Kalie learns to organize and resist.

Through its lyrical core, the film challenges the notion of 'progress' as it questions the long term human consequences of short term approaches to land use, decisions that ultimately affect all Americans, rural and urban alike.

Tags
1980s farm crisis, 2011-2016, agriculture, american (u.s.) studies, american west, anti-pipeline protest, big oil, billion dollar surplus, bismarck, boom and bust, bridge to the future, bullfrog films, business ethics, capitalism, climate change, community, competing interests, county commission meeting, dakota access pipeline, dakota oil processing, dapl, democracy, diesel refinery, disappearing way of life, earl butz, economics, energy, energy development, energy sector, ethanol plant, expository, family farms, farming, foreclosure, fossil fuel addiction, fossil fuels, geronimo, groundwater contamination, huge oil reserves, importance of place, industrial development, industrialization, jack dalrymple, jed rider, kalie rider, land use, law and legal studies, marley crossing, meaning of progress, missouri river, my country no more, native american tribes, newrelease, north dakota, oil boom, oil companies, oil patch, ovid, peak oil, planning and zoning, preserving agricultural heritage, preserving open space, preserving the culture, preserving the wildlife, ranching, regulation, renewable fuels, resource planning and management, ruben valdez, rural america, rural community in crisis, rural sociology, rural studies, s_0037, s_0050, s_0085, s_0089, s_0105, s_0174, s_0239, s_0247, s_0250, s_0299, s_0437, s_0439, s_0462, s_0642, s_0655, shale oil, standing rock, standing rock protest, state budget, sunset, the american west, the bakken, title_m, trenton, williams county, wind

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