In the new documentary, “Papertown,” a film that immerses itself into the mountain community of Canton as it dealt with the closure of its 115-year-old paper mill in 2023, features a scene with Gail Mull — the town’s mayor pro tem and secretary of the local millworkers union — that sums it all up. 

“The mill has provided, and there is going to be life after the mill,” Mull said. “Billionaires come and go, we’re going to be here forever. We have to make something of it.  We have to have the backbone. We have to have the grit. We have got to stay here and make something of it — and we will.” 

Although the official premiere of the “Papertown” will be held on May 22 at the Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colorado, folks from around Haywood County and greater Western North Carolina were treated to a special screening on May 17 at Sorrells Street Park in downtown Canton.

That evening, a crowd of thousands packed into the park. With the skyline of the abandoned mill looming in the background, the audience sat down in lawn chairs and awaited the screening. Before that, the production crew, as well as a couple town officials and characters from the film gathered onstage for a live Q&A session — not only about the experience of being part of the documentary, but also what the story itself means to the town.

“This movie is going to go forth to all places across the United States [and] across the world because [your] story matters,” Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers told the crowd. “As much as this is a Canton story, a Haywood County story, this is a story of Americans all across this country that are due respect. What you do matters, hard work matters — that’s us.”

“There are bigger things to come, and that’s what I believe in,” added Mull. “I believe that we are optimistic, that we have overcome and have lived to see another day. We are not dead, we’re still alive and we’re still kicking.”

Former mill worker Roger Frady, who is featured in “Papertown,” had heartfelt reflections when asked what it was like to be involved in the process as someone who was employed by Pactiv Evergreen. A fourth-generation mill employee, Frady was a boiler control operator.

“I will tell you, I miss my mill family. I miss talking to them,” Frady said, his eyes soon rising over the audience and towards the mill in the distance.

With the announcement by Pactiv Evergreen of the mill closure in the spring of 2023, the idea for “Papertown” was immediate and evolved quickly. Combining forces with a handful of local film production teams, Jeremy Seifert, an Asheville-based director, relentlessly documented the last three months at the mill before it closed. The film not only focuses on the mill workers themselves but also the community as a whole and how everyone was coming to terms with the loss.

“The film allows people from the outside to get an inside view of that community, to really meet and get to know these amazing people and characters,” Seifert said. “[During] the three years making the film, I fell in love with the place and the people.”

Seifert is an award-winning director. His works have appeared at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and beyond. Seifert was also the director of photography and producer for the new musical documentary “We Are The Shaggs,” which has been making the rounds on the film festival circuit this year.

Alongside Seifert, the production crew includes several Haywood County locals, including producers Chris Pruett and Colby Sexton, director of photography Jacob Sutton and production specialist Luke Sutton. Seifert looks at “Papertown” as a three-year “labor of love.” Since then, the crew has decided to stick together and formed New Union Films.

“The people from the mill, just being so open and letting us come into their home, welcoming us with open arms was pretty amazing, the friendships we made along the whole way,” Luke Sutton noted about the filming process.

To note, Pruett’s “papaw,” D.P. Milner, worked at the mill. The film is dedicated to Milner “and all the many generations of mill workers.” 

“For me, as a filmmaker, I don’t think I’ll ever make anything that tops this,” Pruett, a fifth-generation Canton native, said of his deep ties to the mill and community at-large.

In a wild twist of fate, iconic singer-songwriter Dave Matthews is an executive producer for “Papertown.” A longtime friend of Seifert’s, Matthews viewed an early cut of the film and loved it so much that he penned the melody “Papertown,” which now serves as the theme song. The recording also includes songbird Sierra Ferrell and fiddler Sarah Watkins. As well, Dave Matthews debuted the number at a Dave Matthews Band gig in Charlotte on May 16.

“He wrote this incredible song that holds the spirit and life of the whole film in such a powerful way,” Seifert said.

At one point in the film, a couple of stark statistics appear on the screen:

• “Since 1979, as many as 6.7 million U.S. manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. A decline of 35%”

• “For every 100 factory jobs lost in a community, 744 other jobs disappear.”

Former N.C. Governor Roy Cooper and Gail Mull.

When asked what “Papertown” says about the current state of America — where what happened to the mill and the people of Canton symbolizes a broader story of the economic tragedy and cultural erasure now occurring in our country — Seifert agrees there’s a larger context to the film.

“It’s a singular story that has universal implications, and it speaks to this country and what we’re all struggling with right now on so many levels,” Seifert said. “This film is about the death of industry, the loss of good-paying jobs, this feeling of powerlessness. The people in power and the people with money who own all these things, they’re so removed from the local place itself, and yet they’re making these decisions that completely affect our lives — and that’s happening over and over and over again.”

Want to watch?

A documentary about the Canton paper mill closure in 2023, “Papertown” will make its official premiere at the Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colorado, on May 22.

Other screenings and streaming availability options are also planned. For more information and/or to donate and support the release of “Papertown,” please visit newunionfilms.com/papertowndoc.