In West Virginia’s mountains, where coal is the official state rock and mining is synonymous with work, culture, and family, two unlikely heroes take on the region’s largest mining company and its powerful CEO. The film begins in 2007 as Massey Energy prepares to blast more than 6,000 acres of untouched forest on Coal River Mountain in spite of urgent protests to stop the mountaintop removal. Lorelei Scarbro and Betty Harrah are on opposite sides of the tense debate in their fiercely divided community, which has sent men to the mines for generations. But when an explosion in nearby Upper Big Branch kills 29 people and Massey is suspected of unsafe practices, the two women realize they have more in common than they think and join forces to challenge the company. Overburden is the waste material that must be cleared before tapping a coal seam. In this case, it’s more than rocks and dirt—and may prove too tough to push past.  RYS