Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon
USA | 2006 | 72 min
In the rural Oregon logging town of Philomath, every high school graduate has their college tuition paid thanks to the generosity of local lumber baron Rex Clemens. But when a new schools Superintendent arrives from Chicago, the administrators of the scholarship become concerned over the increasingly "liberal" direction of the schools. The conflict between the old-time loggers and the "urban immigrants" escalates dramatically, and the scholarship administrators deliver an ultimatum: either the superintendent leaves, or the scholarship is withdrawn, leaving the town’s children without money for college.
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DIR Peter Richardson
CAST Dr. Terry Kneisler, Steve Lowther
Official site Won, 2006 Sarasota Film Festival – Best Documentary
Clear Cut is a blisteringly topical examination of the vast ideological divisions within our country. I love this film and I love that it was my first introduction to the multilayered work of Peter Richardson who last year won our Documentary Grand Jury Prize with his follow up film How To Die in Oregon. Richardson clearly knows the territory.
—David Courier, Sundance Institute
