Josh Fox didn’t set out to make a movie. When gas companies started coming round to his woodland home on a tributary to the Delaware River in NE Pennsylvania, asking him to sign a gas lease, he started asking questions about the possible consequences of gas drilling. His quest for answers took him on a 24-state journey where he heard recurring accounts of water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation, well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. In the course of his travels Josh talks to EPA whistleblowers, congressmen, world-recognized scientists, and ordinary Americans who have had their lives turned upside down by the consequences of gas drilling in their backyards.

Josh’s story has real resonance for many of us here in Central Pennsylvania, who are trying to make sense of what gas drilling means for us. More than 1,600 citizens streamed into the Community Arts Center on May 11th for a free screening of the documentary Gasland. If you were among them, please send the Guardian some of your thoughts and comments. If you missed it, the film will play in other towns in Pennsylvania and New York this June before premiering on HBO on June 21. Previews, interviews, and commentary about the film are all over the Internet; check them out. If enough people ask, Director Josh Fox will bring the film back to the area for an outdoor screening this summer. If you live in Gasland you need to see this movie.

To get the latest information about movie screenings go to www.gaslandthemovie.com/wp