From the Producer/Director

When I started making these films as a young father back in the 1970’s and 80’s, I designed my work to be presented with no narration or any blatant subjectivity that would skew the film’s point of view. It would be just a straight up ‘let them tell their story’ approach.

This was done to provide primary ‘original source’ documentation of a people – in a place and time. My only bias was, and is, I love my country and I wanted to commit to giving credit where credit was due.

The subjects of these films and videos did indeed tell their story. I listened, I probed, but I didn’t interfere. I know now, in hindsight, that what we were doing, together, was capturing that hard-fought, hard-won personal ethos that both of us, subject and filmmaker, shared. We were both loyal members of an authentic, deeply held patriotism that lived and breathed in every heart, in every home, on every corner that we filmed.

In ‘Almost Heaven, Grafton, West Virginia’ (1974) Nixon’s Watergate scandal plays out on TV’s and radio in the background as people do their best to hang on to their sacred norms; in ‘Small Business My Way’ (1980), shop owners struggle to do the right thing in high inflationary times, and they do it by believing in their capacity to do their job, and do it well, so their customers will, in the long hull, help pull them through; and in ‘Natural Capital Speaks’ (1990’s), as the ecological crises grows, scientists and politicians from across the world passionately debate the fate of the earth without an inkling of the constitutional crises that would soon engulf the free world’s most reliable democracies – including, most significantly, this one.

That this country could, as this is being written, be dragged into an authoritarian, fascistic upheaval of all that we hold dear is frightening. Our patriotism is being corrupted and threatened in whole and in part as we descend into this mesmerizing shame, this frenetic lawlessness playing out right in front of us, every day, in every way. We bloody well knew how to fight – and defeat – fascism in Europe a generation or so ago, what in God’s name is happening to the body politic now?

Wherever you want to point your finger, you have to believe that the center will hold, that we will get this right, and that even given its deep and troubled soul, the power and robust resilience of our constitution, of our democracy, can and will stand and thrive.

To be defeated by an ugly, power hungry and treacherous descent into darkness and dictatorship is downright un-American.

We won’t be able to save ourselves without supporting and voting for a richly diverse and inclusive democracy in every way, every day.

We won’t be able to save the Earth without investing in our natural capital.

Please enjoy this reaffirming look back to the way we were, and then imagine, and work, and vote, (if that’s still available to you), for what we can yet become, moving forward.

Peter R Griesinger
Producer/Director
Presidents’ Day 2026