VS. GOLIATH: Stories from the Frontlines (Night 2/2)

Executive produced by Don Cheadle and The Solutions Project, Fossil Free Media, and The Equation Campaign, VS. GOLIATH is an award-winning documentary series from Tikkun Olam Productions. After spending the past year screening at film festivals around the country, VS. GOLIATH is beginning an impact campaign designed to support communities organizing against fossil fuel expansion. The series brings audiences directly to the frontlines through the stories of people who refused to accept that their communities should become sacrifice zones.

The films feature a retired schoolteacher whose faith drives her fight against the petrochemical industry in Louisiana; a veteran, farmers, and Indigenous leaders battling the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Appalachia; Indigenous leadership resisting oil and gas extraction in the Greater Chaco region of New Mexico; and a former refinery worker challenging liquefied natural gas exports in Port Arthur, Texas. These are stories of resistance, courage, community, & what becomes possible when ordinary people decide to stand against Goliath.

Join 7 Directions of Service for VS. GOLIATH: Stories from the Frontlines, a special two-night film and community gathering at the Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill. Through documentary film, conversation, and community action, we will travel from Appalachia and Cancer Alley to the Greater Chaco region, hearing from communities confronting some of the most consequential environmental justice struggles in the country. These aren’t simply stories on a screen. They are stories about people defending home. And their struggles have important lessons for the fights happening right here in North Carolina.

Night 2/2: GREATER CHACO REGION & PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS
Thursday, August 27
Doors Open: 6:00 PM | Films Begin: 6:15 PM
Varsity Theater, 123 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Night Two takes us west to the Greater Chaco region and south to Port Arthur, Texas—two communities whose stories reveal the profound connections between Indigenous sovereignty, environmental justice, public health, and the consequences of fossil fuel development.

The evening begins in the Greater Chaco region, a living cultural landscape of immense significance to Indigenous peoples that has faced decades of pressure from oil and gas extraction. The film explores the relationship between Indigenous sovereignty, sacred places, cultural survival, land, water, and environmental justice, asking a fundamental question:

What happens when places Indigenous peoples consider sacred are treated simply as resources to be extracted?

We then travel to Port Arthur, Texas, where residents living in the shadow of refineries and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities confront the cumulative impacts of industrial pollution on their families and neighborhoods. Through the story of a former refinery worker turned advocate, the film examines the human cost of fossil fuel expansion and the courage required to challenge the industry from within.

Although these stories unfold in different places, they raise many of the same questions we are asking here in North Carolina.

As proposed fossil fuel infrastructure continues to move through our region, Indigenous communities and their allies are confronting projects that threaten waterways, ancestral landscapes, archaeological sites, cultural resources, potential burial grounds, and the health of surrounding communities.