Documentary highlights city's 'Meltdown' at DeYor

There once was a time in Youngstown when blast furnaces cast a reddish haze across the midnight skies and the clang from within steel producing giants rang free. Then it was gone. "There's an entire generation that doesn't remember the steel mills," explained filmmaker Kevin DeOliveira, whose documentary, "Steel Valley: Meltdown," is scheduled to premiere at the DeYor Performing Arts Center on Friday.

Using Youngstown as the example for an economic plague and industrial decline that has swept the Midwest, DeOliveira's documentary sets out to illustrate what he calls a "disconnect" between his generation and the generations of the city's steel age.

The film begins by diving into Youngstown's founding and early history before it progresses into the present and speculates about the city's uncertain but hopeful future.

"We wanted to go all the way back to John Young when he founded Youngstown and tell the story from there up to the present," DeOliveira said. "That's the only way to really understand what happened here."

Made in association with Stuck in Ohio Productions, a local film production company, DeOliveira confessed there is a lot of bleak subject matter and negativity in his film, but consciously opted to be somewhat more optimistic.

"[Steel Valley: Meltdown] really refers to a new point," he said. "It's about taking what we were, melting that down and reforging the valley into something else."

DeOliveira shot the film using various local plants that are still functioning or are an eerie, abandoned shell in order to create an environment on the big screen that puts the viewer in a situation from inside the mills, creating a gritty industrial experience.

"We tried make the film edgier to appeal to a younger audience," DeOliveira said. "We wanted people to be watching this film and get the feeling of what it was like to be in one of these mills."

"Steel Valley: Meltdown" features interviews with United Auto Workers leaders, Mayor Jay Williams and Kent State and Youngstown State University professors including Sherry Linkon.

"She is a storyteller at heart," DeOliveira said of the YSU professor. "She had a lot of insight on how the steel mills impacted the people of the Mahoning Valley."

The director admits he was somewhat shocked with the interviews conducted and how those interviewed that are not in contact with each other all seemed to have similar ideas and points of view.

"We'd do an interview with the mayor and someone who wouldn't normally be in contact with him would have a similar point of view," DeOliveira said. "It's confirmation that everyone is aware of what's gone on here and is on the same track to a solution."

The premiere will begin at 7 p.m. with DeOliveira and Phil Kidd of Defend Youngstown speaking prior to the showing. Copies of the film will be for sale at the premiere. The premiere is free and open to the public.