Summer film series planned

Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

Carbon County Higher Education Center officials would like to extend community education efforts and address economic development from a new angle this summer.

Planning is under way for the western pine beetle film festival, to be co-hosted by the CCHEC and the Carbon County Economic Development Corporation.

Films should portray the “myth of the West,” CCHEC Director Dave Throgmorton said. Ideas range from the 1914 silent film, “The Virginian,” to a John Wayne film, “The Searchers,” to the popular “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and the short classic on Western justice, “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

“We want it to be more than just showing movies,” Throgmorton said. “We want people to have a chance to talk to some film critics and film professors so they can become more sophisticated in the way they look at films overall.”

EDC Director Mark Ducker said the series “should be internal and external. Internally, we hope it will create a lot of discussion. There is a lot to the concept of the myth of the West because films often don’t reflect reality. In studying them, we should learn a lot about the history of the American West.” Ducker is also hopeful festival attendees will learn more about Wyoming and Carbon County.

Lectures and workshops would be interspersed with the screenings.