The feature documentary Oil in the
Family follows filmmaker Jon Goldman in his attempt to
understand his family’s connection to the oil industry and the
classic 1948 documentary film Louisiana Story. Using Robert J. Flaherty’s final masterpiece as a
touchstone, Goldman returns to his bayou roots sixty years later
and discovers the price of progress on the land and its people.
Mixing archival and new footage, Flaherty’s story with the
people of Louisiana’s, Oil in the Family makes the
connection between the way we live our everyday lives and the
very big story of oil. By looking at the history of oil in a
small part of Louisiana, we can tell a story about all of us,
about the blessing and curse of oil for all Americans told by a
few of the people who were there at the beginning and still live
there today. It is a film about a parallel search, one by a
filmmaker long ago, and one by a modern filmmaker who, in
uncovering his family’s role in the Louisiana oil boom, also
learns about how the oil industry remakes a region and the
world.
