The audience heard speeches from John Monteleone, Wollongong Art Gallery (music of the Beneath Black Skies documentary sound track will be played there 26th September); Andrew Vickers, General Secretary of the CFMEU "If you aren't touched by this documentary... you don't have a heart"; Sharon Bird, Federal Member Cunningham who talked about her personal connection to the mines and Stuart Saywell, a retired mine manager in his eighties who let us know how he was still a mine student.
MC Marty Haynes, i98FM, then asked the audience for a minute’s silence for all the miners who have lost their lives hewing coal.
The documentary Beneath Black Skies held the audience's attention. You could hear gasps in the audience when scenes from the disasters revealed just how horrible what happened was.
Len Leffley one of the few remaining pick and shovel coal miners on the south coast, then had the audience laughing with his jokes about nicknames. "Then there was snake, he was always ready to strike!"
The night ended with women banging their pots and pans as they would have done during the Battle of Bulli and telling everyone to go home!
Beneath Black Skies received a fantastic response and continues to do so.
It’s a great Father’s Day gift and can be purchased online at www.beneathblackskies.com.au
Tickets are also available at Coledale Markets, Woonona Post Office, Spring into Corrimal Fair.
Further screenings include Mt Kembla Community Hall, 2pm Saturday 29 August and Thursday 10 September at the Thirroul Community Centre.
SYNOPSIS
The Illawarra, south of Sydney, once held a reputation for the dustiest and gassiest coal mines in Australia.
In 1887 the miners at the Old Bulli Colliery were on strike to better conditions and increase their pay, but a train load of 'scab' (non union) labour was being brought to the Old Bulli Colliery to replace striking miners. It was the women who stopped the labour getting to the pits as they stood in front of a moving train and with their babies pleaded for the non union men to return home. Two months later the Bulli pit blew up killing 81 men and boys.
Australia's two most tragic and largest industrial disasters took place within 20 years and within twenty kilometres of each other. In March 1887, the Bulli Explosion and in July 1902, 120 children became fatherless, when 96 men and boys were killed in the Mt Kembla Disaster. Grandfathers, fathers and sons who worked together, perished together.
The south coast miners were regarded by some as the most militant miners in the mining industry as they were at the forefront of campaigns such as the fight against dust and the 35 hour week. In 1944, young miners in the Southern District were sent to war over an industrial dispute when for the first time an Australian coal mine was taken over by the Federal Government.
How did Australia's first mineral export, coal, shape the men and women who lived the mining life beneath black skies? This remarkable history of the area is told through the miners, their wives, their unions, mining historians, and the mining official's perspectives.
Narrated by Australian actor David Field with a striking musical score, and dramatic re-enactments of the late 19th and early 20th Century, this film is a community treasure of Australian significance. | 
