Photos: TO USE A MOUNTAIN Documentary to Open Theatrically in NYC Next Week
The film traces the 1982 search for a nuclear waste site that led to Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
TO USE A MOUNTAIN, a documentary from filmmaker Casey Carter, is set to open theatrically at DCTV in New York next week, with a regional theatrical expansion to follow and a nationwide video-on-demand release planned for the US and Canada. The film examines the federal government's decades-long search for a permanent site to store the nation's nuclear waste, a process that in 1982 placed six rural American communities under consideration before Yucca Mountain in Nevada was chosen.
Synopsis
In 1982, six rural communities across the United States were notified that all of the nation's nuclear waste might be buried beneath them forever.
Faced with a mandate to isolate the waste for 10,000 years, the Department of Energy mapped, analyzed, and assembled its assessments, while the unsuspecting stewards of sacrificial territory found themselves fighting for their homes, health, history and dignity. In the end, one site was chosen: a desert ridge in Nevada called Yucca Mountain, on the unceded lands of the Western Shoshone. After decades of controversy, construction at Yucca Mountain was halted, and to this day, no permanent solution has been devised for America's 90,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.
Against the impassive logic of government analysis and archives, TO USE A MOUNTAIN assembles a people's history of resistance and stewardship through a visceral journey across the landscapes, ecologies, and personal histories of the candidate sites. Farmers, miners, citizen scientists, Native American leaders, and activists—each with a story bound to this enduring threat—stand in stark contrast to the cold, silent machinery of bureaucracy, in a meditation on resistance, memory, and the timeless struggle between power and place.
The film is timely amid recent news reports about the Manhattan Project and high radiation levels in New York State and across the country. In addition, on July 28, DOE named Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah as finalists to host 'Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses' — federal sites that would handle spent fuel and waste management. Secretary Wright signed MOUs with all five; DOE plans to pick three host states by the end of 2026. Separately, the White House has circulated a policy draft to strip Yucca Mountain of its status as the sole designated repository.
Louisiana is one of the six communities in the film. The 1982 siting process the film documents is running again right now, in some of the same places, under a new name. Rep. Dina Titus called the DOE announcement 'a monumental victory for Nevada.' Nevada's political class is celebrating what the film's Louisiana subjects should be alarmed by.
Credits
A film by: Casey Carter
Produced by: Colleen Cassingham, Jonna McKone
Executive Producers: Brett Story, Maida Lynn, Ryan Krivoshey
TO USE A MOUNTAIN will open theatrically at DCTV in New York on Friday, August 21 with a regional theatrical expansion to follow. VOD release (via Grasshopper Film) will occur in 2027.
TO USE A MOUNTAIN is also screening with frontline communities across the country currently confronting issues of nuclear waste, nuclear weapons production, and next generation nuclear projects initiated in response to the energy demands of the AI data center boom.
Official Selection
Visions du Réel (Switzerland) | Special Jury Award, Int'l Competition | World Premiere
Dallas IFF (Dallas, Texas) | Documentary Feature Competition
DOXA (Vancouver) | Best Feature Honorable Mention, ParaDOXA Forum
IDFA (Amsterdam) | Best of Fest
Big Sky (Missoula, Montana) | Official Selection
And many more…
Casey Carter is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary designer whose work engages nonfiction storytelling in film and video, photography, data visualization, and cartography. His work centers on themes of governmentality, geography, environmentalism, and personal subjectivities. His short films, TWO BOYS AND A DREAM (2023), TWO PRISONS (2020), and THE RIGHTS OF NATURE (2019), have screened at festivals including Revolutions Per Minute, SF Shorts, Salem, Ashland Independent, and Hong Kong Film Art. He holds a B.S. in Physics and B.S. in Photography from Middle Tennessee State University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan. His work has been supported through grants and fellowships from institutions including Sundance Documentary Film Program, IDA, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Marble House Project, Monson Arts, The Redford Center, SFFILM, Flies Collective, and others. He is the director, cinematographer, and editor of his first feature film, TO USE A MOUNTAIN, which premiered at Visions du Réel, where it won a Special Jury Award, and has gone on to collect accolades at film festivals across the globe.
Feature Documentary, USA, 2025 (Running time: 99 Minutes)
TO USE A MOUNTAIN is produced by Colleen Cassingham and Jonna McKone, with Brett Story, Maida Lynn and Ryan Krivoshey serving as executive producers, and is presented by Facet, Narrow Vision Endeavors and Correspondent Productions. A VOD release via Grasshopper Film is planned for 2027.
