Creede is a small, former silver mining town in the heart of a canyon in the San Juan mountains. It has about 300 full-time residents. Just about everywhere you look, you see reminders of the area's mining heritage – including the abandoned mines that surround the town.
One thing sets Creede apart from other mining towns in Colorado: It has a thriving local theater scene.
In the 1960s, as the silver mining industry began to die out, The Creede Repertory Theatre opened with a handful of theater students. Sixty years later, there's still some tension between the free-spirited thespians who visit each summer and the locals who work as ranchers or outfitters.
Yet, somehow, they coexist. That dynamic – and how everyone gets along with one another – drew filmmakers Kahane Corn Cooperman and Innbo Shim to make the documentary Creede, USA.
The film will be screened Wednesday, Nov. 11, as part of the Go West Film Festival in Greeley.
Kahane and Innbo joined Erin O’Toole earlier this year to talk about the film. And at the end of a momentous week in a pretty divided country, we’re listening back to that conversation today, to see what lessons Creede might offer the rest of us in the U.S.
