The South Charleston Museum's LaBelle Theater recently screened two of the state's most acclaimed films in recent years. They are Ray and Judy Schmitt's "Six Months" and Don Diego Ramirez' "Trailer Trash - a Film Journal." The program is called "Love & Death in West Virginia" as the two themes are dominant in the films.

Gazz phoned Ramirez, 42, a part-time film instructor at Shepherd University, to talk about his internationally screened, award-winning 53-minute film. It's a mélange of rich Super 8 footage and video made with editor David Wanger and musician Ben Townsend.The film started as an attempt to chonicle his grandmother's cancer diagnosis, but the day after she died he learned his grandfather had been murdered, allegedly at the hands of the filmmaker's younger sister and boyfriend.

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GAZZ: "Trailer Trash" deals with intense family history, starting with your plan to document your grandma's fatal bout with cancer. What broadened its scope?

RAMIREZ:  "I was born in a trailer park in Jefferson County, West Virginia. My mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. I never knew my father. The meat of the film deals with the murder of my grandfather -- my youngest sister is involved with the murder. 

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Q: "Trailer Trash" is such a pejorative term. Why that title?

A: "How I've grown to hate those two words. It reduces all that you are all that you know into nothing. I really do think we try to go for some really universal themes that make us part of humanity -- a shared experience regardless of your social standing. We close the film saying no one's life is trash, something to be discarded and thrown away."

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Q: The case hasn't been resolved so where does the film leave off? You 're intending another cut?

A: We've yet to have justice served. The version you are going to see is our last cut which ends the summer of 2007. We want to see the story go all the way to the end, which we see as the legal case against my sister.

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The South Charleston Museum's LaBelle Theater recently screened two of the state's most acclaimed films in recent years. They are Ray and Judy Schmitt's "Six Months" and Don Diego Ramirez' "Trailer Trash - a Film Journal." The program is called "Love & Death in West Virginia" as the two themes are dominant in the films.

Gazz phoned Ramirez, 42, a part-time film instructor at Shepherd University, to talk about his internationally screened, award-winning 53-minute film. It's a mélange of rich Super 8 footage and video made with editor David Wanger and musician Ben Townsend.The film started as an attempt to chonicle his grandmother's cancer diagnosis, but the day after she died he learned his grandfather had been murdered, allegedly at the hands of the filmmaker's younger sister and boyfriend.

..... 

GAZZ: "Trailer Trash" deals with intense family history, starting with your plan to document your grandma's fatal bout with cancer. What broadened its scope?

RAMIREZ:  "I was born in a trailer park in Jefferson County, West Virginia. My mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. I never knew my father. The meat of the film deals with the murder of my grandfather -- my youngest sister is involved with the murder. 

.....

Q: "Trailer Trash" is such a pejorative term. Why that title?

A: "How I've grown to hate those two words. It reduces all that you are all that you know into nothing. I really do think we try to go for some really universal themes that make us part of humanity -- a shared experience regardless of your social standing. We close the film saying no one's life is trash, something to be discarded and thrown away."

.....

Q: The case hasn't been resolved so where does the film leave off? You 're intending another cut?

A: We've yet to have justice served. The version you are going to see is our last cut which ends the summer of 2007. We want to see the story go all the way to the end, which we see as the legal case against my sister.

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Q: The film has been well-received at several underground and independent film festivals. It won best documentary at the 2007 United States Super 8mm Film and Digital Video Festival. How do you characterize the reception here and outside the state?

A: The film has screened at 20 festivals already. We won "best documentary" -- I mean, boom, first festival, first submission! -  at the Rosebud Film and Video Festival in Washngton, D.C. We were, like, one of four Rosebud recipients.

In West Virginia, it's been strange -- we've had strong advocates like Steve Fesenmaier [the gazz "WV Film" blogger]. And others who don't want to deal with the subculture of poverty, this reality of poverty in West Virginia. In cities, they're just incredibly intrigued.

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Q: How much total did you spend on the making of the film?

A: I would say right now we've spent roughly $3,000 total -- mostly film processing and entry fees [to festivals] which are expensive. We got $1,000 when we won the Rosebud film fest and used that to submit to the next series of festivals. The Village Voice said something to the effect of calling it a "microbudgeted masterpiece made on sheer guts."

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Q: The film uses both classic Super 8 footage and contemporary digital footage. Why that choice?

A: Super 8 film looks like film in a video format. That's one of the things that sets our film apart -- not just the intensity of the story but the filmmaking itself.

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Q: What do you hope people take away from it?

A: If you destroy a person and give them no hope and opportunity in who they can become, then, yes, you're going to create "trailer trash." Our thing was to rip that whole emotion apart and show the humanity of these people that are just dismissed.

Call Douglas Imbrogno at 348-3017 or e-mail doug...@cnpapers.com.