help me ID a documentary about a small town technology clash
July 28, 2013 7:46 AM   Subscribe

I'm trying to find a documentary I watched sometime in the 90's, perhaps on HBO but at least on cable. It was set in a small town (New England?) where a burgeoning computer/IT company had just settled a large number of employees. the town's main industry previously had been a paper mill (or some similar industry) that hadn't been doing well, and coincidentally went out of business as the IT folks moved in.

The documentary was meant to be about the one industry and not the other, the collision of the two was a "happy" accident. Scenes include interviews with locals blaming new technologies for their waning livelihood, irate town hall meetings, and an old man from the paper industry yelling at the daughter of an IT guy for speaking her mind.
posted by camdan to Media & Arts (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: This sounds a little like Dadetown, which dates from 1995 and was filmed in Hammondsport, NY. It's actually documentary-style fiction (not really a "mockumentary" as its subject is treated fairly seriously).
posted by carmicha at 8:12 AM on July 28, 2013


I remember seeing that too -- but wasn't it actually a fictional story filmed in documentary style? The town industry was a metal fastener (staples) factory? I remember a scene where one of the new IT people found a dead deer in their driveway left there by an angry townie, and one gut-wrenching scene of a mother seeing her dead child's body at a crime scene (I can't remember how the child was killed, but I think it was some accident that was a result of the escalating conflict between the old & new townsfolk).

I remember watching it on cable once and being completely engrossed & really disturbed by the scene with the mother & child, and then feeling like an absolute sucker when the end-credits info revealed that it was all actors & fiction. I think the title of the movie was the town's name?
posted by oh yeah! at 8:13 AM on July 28, 2013


Dadetown's industry was paperclips.
posted by carmicha at 8:14 AM on July 28, 2013


Response by poster: that must be it - looks like my memory conflated fiction with reality. thanks!
posted by camdan at 8:22 AM on July 28, 2013


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