Appalachian Poverty Revisited in New Documentary

David Sutherland takes a look at rural poverty in Appalachia in his new documentary, Country Boys, which is to air on PBS’ Frontline January 9, 10, and 11.

Sutherland stated that he made the movie in an attempt to show what poverty “looks like” -- “I remembered the photos on the covers of Life and Look magazines in the late '50s and early '60s, when the media had sent correspondents down to West Virginia and the rest of Appalachia, and I thought how over the last 25 years poverty has taken on an urban face. I don't mean to say that urban poverty isn't a problem, but over the past decade or so, media coverage has focused more and more on breaking news and urban issues and less and less on the plight of the rural poor.”

In Country Boys, Sutherland follows the lives of two teenage boys in Floyd County Kentucky for over three years.

The timing of the movie is of particular interest as we have all been reminded with the recent mining tragedy in West Virginia of the economic state of Appalachia.

You may remember Sutherland’s critically acclaimed documentary, The Farmer’s Wife, about a family’s struggle to hold on to their farm, which aired on PBS in 1998.