Welcome to POV .
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of
Wisconsin Public Television's Director's Cut .
Tonight, one politically active teenager decides to take on
a multinational corporation believed to be behind
the natural gas drilling accident
that destroyed her village in the documentary, Grit .
It was one of the largest
environmental disasters in recent history.
Sixty thousand people in an Indonesian village
near East Java, were left homeless
after their village was buried in a tsunami of boiling mud.
Dian was only 6 years old when her village,
along with fifteen others, were obliterated.
Schools, mosques and places of business were submerged
under more than 60 feet of dried mud.
The destruction of her community was tragic enough
but what propels young Dian and others into action
is the fact that the corporation, Lapindo
still has not provided eighty percent
of the promised reparations to victims.
Grit is directed by Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander.
The title of their current collaboration could just as easily be used
to describe these two resolute filmmakers.
Wade's documentary Freeheld won an Oscar
in the Best Documentary Shorts Category
and a Sundance Special Jury Prize.
For Friedlander, this is her second film based in Indonesia,
a country she has called home.
Her award-winning feature documentary
Where Heaven Meets Hell is also set in East Java.
Grit starts now on Wisconsin Public Television,
your home for independent film.