A reconstruction of the 2001 film for its 25th anniversary using gorgeous new 4K scans, texts, and animations!

An Injury to One provides a corrective—and absolutely compelling—glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history: the rise and fall of Butte, Montana. Specifically, it chronicles the mysterious death of Wobbly organizer Frank Little, a story whose grisly details have taken on a legendary status in the state. Much of the extant evidence is inscribed upon the landscape of Butte and its surroundings. Thus, a connection is drawn between the unsolved murder of Little, and the attempted murder of the town itself.

Archival footage mixes with deftly deployed intertitles, while the lyrics to traditional mining songs are accompanied by music from William Oldham, Jim O'Rourke, and the band Low, producing an appropriately moody, effulgent, and strangely out-of-time soundtrack. The result is a unique film/video hybrid that combines painterly images, incisive writing, and a bold graphic sensibility to produce an articulate example of the aesthetic and political possibilities offered by filmmaking in the digital age.

This version is not precisely a “remaster” but rather a meticulous reconstruction of the original vision of the film. Where the original material was available, it was used, in the highest quality available. Where such material no longer exists, adequate substitutions were made. The result is something new, both resolutely of the past while firmly in the present. The richness of the film material is almost unimaginable from the original version—more lush, more expressive, more heartbreaking, too.

TRT: 53 min

In person: Travis Wilkerson