Press

PRESS RELEASE: HAYNESVILLE Selected for Coveted “Spotlight Premiere” Slot at SXSW Film 2010

The news came to the “Haynesville” production office in a deceptively simple and somewhat cryptic E-mail from Janet Pierson, SXSW’s producer of the film festival: “Congrats! You’re in! Call me.”

It was the deciphering of the message that was so important.  The documentary “Haynesville: The Relentless Hunt for Energy Future” had been chosen for the world-renowned SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.  Added to that, the film had earned a coveted “Spotlight Premiere” slot and would show at the historic Paramount Theater.

“I couldn’t believe it when Janet told me the news,” said Gregory Kallenberg, director of the film.  “Showing at SXSW was our highest goal.  After getting off of the phone, I actually think I had to sit down and process what had just happened.”

SXSW Film is globally known for being a top-tiered film festival and, with Sundance, the best festival in the country for documentaries.  This year, with less than 50 slots, SXSW broke a record by receiving over 750 documentary films.  Only 20 of the 50 are Spotlight Premieres.

“It’s an amazing honor, and just the way we wanted to premiere the film,” says Kallenberg.  “We feel like ‘Haynesville’ is an important film that needs to seen by the entire country, and we’re hoping that this prestigious showing helps position the film so that it can be seen by a wider audience.”

“Haynesville” plays on Tuesday, March 16 at 11am at the Paramount Theater.  Tickets will be available at the box office prior to the screening for $10.  SXSW badge holders can attend the screening as part of the conference.

ABOUT THE FILM: “Haynesville” is a film documenting the historic discovery of the nation’s largest natural gas field and its effect on three people’s lives.  The film also explores the potential impact of the Haynesville’s vast reserves of natural gas on a clean energy future.  The film has been honored by being an official selection at the Climate Summit in Copehagen and earned a Green Award nomination at the Sheffield International Doc/Fest in England.

ABOUT SXSW FILM: The SXSW® Film Conference and Festival is a uniquely creative environment featuring the dynamic convergence of talent, smart audiences and industry heavyweights. A hotbed of discovery and interactivity, the event offers lucrative networking opportunities and immersion into the art and business of the rapidly evolving world of independent film.

CONTACT:

Gregory Kallenberg, gregory@haynesvillemovie.com

More information and the film trailer: www.HaynesvilleMovie.com

Facebook group: www.Facebook.com/HaynesvilleMovie

More information on SXSW Film: sxsw.com/film/screenings

World to Get a Glimpse of “Haynesville” in Copenhagen

By Vickie Welborn, vwelborn@gannett.com

The Haynesville Shale and its potential impact on the world’s energy future will on display Monday at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

The documentary, “Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for Energy,” will be shown at least once. “We’re working on a second screening,” said Gregory Kallenberg, director and co-producer.

The invitation to screen “Haynesville” in Copenhagen came “out of the blue,” Kallenberg said. It premiered internationally in November at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in Sheffield, England. It’s also been shown in New York and New Orleans, with an invitation pending in Houston. Shreveport audiences will get to see it in January.

“We were so busy trying to figure out how to get the film out there and get the film shown in England that it’s not sunk in until today how big this could be,” Kallenberg said this week. He leaves for Denmark today.

Kallenberg and co-producer Mark Bullard began filming “Haynesville” last spring just as the Haynesville Shale forever altered life in northwest Louisiana. The independent filmmakers picked three DeSoto Parish residents — Kassi Fitzgerald, Reegis Richard and Mike Smith — and for several months followed their journey as the boom hit and impacted their lives.

The film tells the story of the Haynesville Shale itself — touted as the largest natural gas find in the United States — and broadens the view to what that could mean to a country searching for solutions to its energy future. Environmentalists, academicians and oil and gas insiders hash out the issues.

“We heard a lot in England about the personal stories and how they show the human side. So there are some lessons to be learned there,” Kallenberg said. “But what I also find when people walk out of the film is they really, if nothing else, grasp the magnitude of the Haynesville Shale and get an idea (about) the impact it could possibly have. The film is changing people’s minds or informing their decisions to think … more almost like they are augmenting their knowledge about natural gas. Anyone with questions on a supply of natural gas will have a clearer picture of the national and international energy picture.”

The Haynesville Shale has the potential to not only lead the nation but lead the world in understanding what natural gas can do for the energy future. “It’s a story that anyone can learn from,” he added.

Kallenberg is uncertain about whether President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to return to the summit Monday, will see “Haynesville.”

“But he has an open invitation. “» We hope delegates of the climate summit all over the world, more importantly the U.S., will get to see the film in this environment,” Kallenberg said. “I can’t think of a better place internationally to see this film. This is a major statement on how to get to an energy future. We made some big statements on that and if this opens discussion on it, then the film has been successful. If I can I have even the smallest impact on the energy discussion in Copenhagen, it will be an amazing thing.”

HOUSTON CHRONICLE:  Filmmaker Felt “Haynesville” Energy , by Tom Fowler

Gregory Kallenberg was sitting in a Shreveport diner early last year the first time he heard about the massive Haynesville natural gas find from a fellow patron.

“It was like the crazy miner who comes in from the hills saying he has found gold,” said Kallenberg, a former newspaper reporter and cable television writer turned documentary filmmaker. But what he thought would be a film about the people in the middle of a mad rush for drilling rights ended up being something bigger, a story about the nation’s energy future.

Kallenberg took a few minutes from preparing for a screening of the movie at the Copenhagen climate change conference this week to speak with Chronicle reporter Tom Fowler by phone about his film Haynesville.

Q: What’s your elevator-pitch description of the movie?

A: Haynesville follows the momentous discovery of what is looking like it will be the largest natural gas field in the country. The film itself looks at the discovery from the perspective of three people’s lives and how they’re affected by the find. One is a single mom fighting for her community’s land rights. One is an African-American preacher who’s trying to use the proceeds from the Haynesville to build a Christian school. And the other is a self-described good ol’ boy who becomes an overnight millionaire. The other part that’s woven in between these personal stories is what this vast amount of energy means. What does it mean when you find 170 TCF of natural gas? How does that impact the national energy picture and eventually the energy future?

Q: Energy documentaries tend to be preachy environmental pieces or pro-industry, heavy-on-the-economics films. Where does Haynesville come out?

A: My background is journalism, and being a journalist I was always taught to present things in a balanced way and let the reader pick though the facts and decide what they thought about the story. I approached this film in the very same way. What I had to do was walk a very fine line. It’s the line of not being preachy and not being pro-industry. This is a piece that shows in a very balanced way where energy comes from and what effect it has on the people at the ground level. We all use energy, and using energy, it’s important to know how we get it. And it’s important to know what this energy could do for the nation’s future.

Another thing that we did with the film very consciously is there are no industry people speaking on the expert side. We strictly use academics, pundits and environmentalists. So when all of the sudden you have (environmentalist author) Bill McKibben saying that natural gas is a good solution to take us from where we are to a more green and clean energy future, it has huge impact. That was a conscious decision not to use energy people that has paid dividends because audiences are coming out of the film thinking a different way.

Q: How do you think the movie changes audience opinions on drilling?

A: We’ve now shown this film in Louisiana, in New York, in England, and we’re about to show it in Copenhagen at the climate summit. What we’re seeing with the audience is an empirical change in the way they think. I think people know how much coal we use in the United States. But I don’t think people know how clean a fossil fuel natural gas is. I don’t think people know there’s no utility-level storage for renewables. Bringing these things to the table really does change an audience. During the Q&A at the end of the film, you really expect the audience to want to talk about the personal stories, but they want to talk about energy and natural gas and how they had no idea these facts were there. Especially in Europe, these guys come in with a preconceived notion of what an oil company is and what they do, or what fossil fuels are. The European audiences came out very positive to some of the notions that came out at the end of the film.

Q: Since you stopped filming in early 2009, there’s been a lot of negative backlash against natural gas shale drilling, particularly in the East. Did you experience much of that when filming?

A: It’s definitely a different environment in Louisiana than in the East. But one thing I can say about Louisiana is we really searched hard for water contamination. We really wanted to kick over every rock we could, and at least in Louisiana we found that the oil companies seemed to be very careful. I don’t know if that’s because they’re watching their pocketbooks or they truly cared. But the fact is, I found the energy companies to be decent stewards considering what they do. They’re clearing land and poking holes in the ground. They’re bringing in big trucks. So there is some damage that occurs, but we didn’t run into exactly what they’ve seen in the Marcellus (a shale formation that stretches from West Virginia to New York), or the fervor that’s up there both for and against the drilling.

Q: Where did your funding come from?

A: I was very careful to do this as an independent project with no industry money. Part of my background was cable television writing, so I took that money and put it into it. And then from there, it was friends and family. Much to my wife’s chagrin, her next six summer vacations are in the film Haynesville.

tom.fowler@chron.com

REVIEW:  ”Haynesville” reviewed by UK’s influential “Eye for Film”

Documentaries about oil seem to have been flowing thick and fast of late, but what of our dependence on the other fossil fuels? It’s a big question and one which Gregory Kallenberg’s documentary tackles at the same time as presenting us with a specific example of a community altered irrevocably by the discovery of a gigantic natural gas field underneath their land.

The community in question is Haynesville, a rural area comprising 96 townships, who were told in 2008 that they were sitting on top of an energy goldmine – the Haynesville shale. This gas field is estimated to be worth more than £1 trillion or, put another way, represents enough energy to run all of America’s energy needs for nine years without help from any other source. As one observer puts it it’s a real-life “Jed Clampett story”.

Kallenberg’s camera tracks three people’s very different experiences following their discovery. The first is Mike Smith, a southern gun-and-nature-loving good ol’ boy, who, thanks to his 300 acres of land – which he seems to have accrued mainly for the love of them than with any major fiscal goal in mind – becomes a millionaire overnight. The second, Kassi Fitzgerald, is a single mum who becomes a community activist after hearing one of her neighbours got stung by an oil company. Incensed, she begins to contact all those with small plots, encouraging them to come together so they have better bargaining power with the oil giants both in terms of cash and, importantly, environmental protection issues. Rounding out the personal stories is that of Pastor Reegis Richard, who sees the shale as a gift from God and is endeavouring to use the cash raised from the sales and donated by his parishioners to realise his dream of creating a Christian academy to offer youngsters and alternative to life on the street.

The soundtrack suggests from the outset that all may not be sweetness and light on the road to unbridled wealth and, sure enough, this is not a straight forward story of getting rich quick. Starting from the point at which the gas is discovered and tracking the ups and downs this core trio face, Kallenberg performs the neat trick of offsetting this microcosm of activity, hopes and fears against the much bigger picture of where the US stands in relation to its energy dependency. He has assembled an impressive array of environmental and industry energy experts, who are included talking-heads style at key points in the story, explaining why the US needs to wean itself off oil and coal and how some believe that gas such as that in the Haynesville shale may represent a bridge between the ‘dirty’ energy of the past and the ‘renewables’ of the future.

Click here for Eye for Film\’s entire review

REVIEW:  ”Haynesville” reviewed by HaynesvillePlay.com

Last night I had the chance to see what was a preview screening of Gregory Kallenberg’s documentary film “Haynesville” and a very interesting panel discussion afterwards.

Somewhere in the list of things I am not is movie critic, but just like a geophysicist who will opine on geopolitics, that won’t stop me. I’ll try to avoid any spoilers because I hope everyone has the opportunity to see the film, as it was very well done. Well shot, well edited and well written. The film professor on the panel after the showing said that it was one of the best documentaries she has seen for the past five years. Since everyone with a video camera is now a documentarian, the level of documentary quality has gone downhill. But “Haynesville” is a professionally made movie that is not to be confused with much of the dreck out there today. Bottom line: it is a very good film.

Click here for HaynesvillePlay.com\’s entire review

PRESS RELEASE:  ”Haynesville” to Premiere at Prestigious Sheffield Documentary Festival in England.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – “Haynesville” chosen to have its world premiere in Sheffield, England at prestigious Sheffield Doc Fest.  The film is also selected to compete for the “Green Doc Award”.

“Haynesville” Documentary to Premiere At Prestigious Sheffield Doc Fest (PDF)

PRESS RELEASE: “Haynesville” launches Web Site and Trailer

“Haynesville” officially begins its grassroots campaign to reach the heights of the documentary film world.
Haynesville Releases Web Site and Trailer (PDF)
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