A film largely about Garfield County's experience with the oil and gas industry is poised to be considered for an Oscar in documentary filmmaking.

The film, entitled “Split Estate,” is set for screenings in Los Angeles and New York City as part of the DocuWeeks festival, which starts July 21 and ends Aug. 20.

The DocuWeeks showcase, sponsored by the International Documentary Association, provides the theatrical runs that are needed for documentaries to qualify for Oscar consideration.

According to producer Debra Anderson, a Boulder native now living in Santa Fe, NM, the film focuses primarily on oil and gas activities in the Rifle and Silt areas. She said a number of area residents are featured, including Laura Amos, Lisa Bracken and Dee Hoffmeister, each of whom has become embroiled in disputes with gas companies over groundwater pollution or other issues.

The film's title refers to a situation in which one individual owns the surface rights of a parcel of land, but someone else owns the rights to minerals, including oil and gas, in the ground.

“‘Split Estate' is an eye-opening examination of the consequences and conflicts that can arise between surface land owners in the western United States, and those who own and extract the energy and mineral rights below,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in a blurb on the movie's website. “This film is of value to anyone wrestling with rational, sustainable energy policy while preserving the priceless elements of cultural heritage, private enterprise above-ground, and the precious health not only of people but the land itself.”

The 76-minute film was made with consulting help from another Garfield County local, Tara Meixsell, who currently is working on a book about the same topic as the film, and features Paonia endocrinologist Theo Colburn, who has been a vocal critic of gas industry tactics.

The film also contains interviews with industry representatives, Anderson said.

Anderson explained that her goal in making the film is “to raise awareness about what's happening in Colorado and lots of other states across the country,” and to pressure government regulators into seeing that “better regulations would be put into place and that more studies would be done” concerning the industry's effects on the health of nearby residents.

“Unfortunately, the individuals whose lives are devastated by oil and gas production near their homes do not have the resources or the power of the oil and gas industry, and their story has not gotten out,” Anderson wrote in an e-mail. “My hope is that decisionmakers will understand this has been a David versus Goliath struggle, and that there is another side to the story. My hope is that our documentary will tell the story of those without money.

In addition to the Garfield County story line, she said, there is a “secondary” plot concerning oil and gas activities in northern New Mexico.

Anderson said she had trained in New York for 13 years, “working my way up” through the industry there, after growing up in Boulder.

In 2001, she said, she moved back West and ultimately settled in Santa Fe. She started working on “Split Estate” in 2006 with a visit to Garfield County, calling it “a portrayal of what happens when an industry moves into … a rural residential area.”

She currently is working on raising money to complete the processing of the film so that it is ready for release to theaters, an effort she said will cost $35,000. She also is hoping that communities wrestling with some of the questions and issued raised in the film will contact her for local screenings around the U.S.

A videoclip of the film can be found on YouTube, and the website address is www.splitestate.com

jcolson@postindependent.com