In Oscar Contender ‘Sallie’s Ashes,’ Three “Alabama Grannies” Take On State’s Most Powerful Company In Urgent Battle

Sarah Smith, known as Sallie, was facing very serious illness when she took on the single most powerful institution in her home state of Alabama – the electric utility Alabama Power.

As her last act in life, she made it her mission to get the company to do something about a potential environmental catastrophe: coal ash — the residue of burning coal for electricity — collecting in a reservoir next to Alabama Power’s ‘Plant Barry’ facility near the Gulf coast. The problem? The pit was unlined and if the levees surrounding it should breach, “21 million tons of toxic ash would be released into the Mobile River and Bay,” according to the makers of the Oscar-contending documentary Sallie’s Ashes.

The film directed and produced by Brennan Robideaux and produced by Daniel Junge shows how Smith enlisted two fellow senior citizens – her close friends Diane Thomas and Savan Wilson – in her campaign to compel Alabama Power and the EPA to move the coal ash to safer ground.

Alabama Power had money and political influence. The Alabama grandmas – well, they had grit and a good story to tell, a superannuated trio doing what seemed like the impossible.

“The original pitch from my producer Daniel Junge was irresistible: A small group of grandmothers in Alabama have banded together to fight for the future of their beloved Mobile Bay,” Robideaux writes in a director’s statement. “The target was a toxic coal ash pit perched on the banks of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, threatening to poison one of the most biodiverse regions in the country.

“And as a filmmaker, my immediate excitement was about capturing the journey of a few determined grannies as they learned to build a website, create social media accounts, and speak out at public events; all in an effort to build a coalition who would care as much about this looming environmental crisis as they did.”

Robideaux lives in Louisiana, one state over from Alabama. His credits include the feature documentary Born to Fly (2022), the short doc A Riehl Blacksmith (2013) and several fictional shorts, including Tanked (2016).

When Robideaux and Junge approached Smith about the possibility of a doing a film about her, she “bluntly told us that if we wanted to make a documentary, we’d better do it soon, as she had just been diagnosed with cancer for the second time–this one being much more severe than the first,” Robideaux writes. “I called the only person I knew would be willing to drop everything and join me on a crazy idea, my creative collaborator Allison Bohl DeHart, and together we journeyed to Mobile, Alabama the next day.

“The women were everything we could have hoped for: funny, charming, and disarmingly sharp. But Sallie’s illness, ever-present in the background, layered the film with urgency. This wasn’t just a story about coal ash and activism; it became a film about purpose, dignity, and joy at the end of life, even when the odds are stacked against you.”

Sallie’s Ashes premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and has gone on to screen at DOC NYC, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (HSDFF) in Arkansas, the New Orleans Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, the Hawai’i International Film Festival, and more. The film was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards and earned a Special Mention at HSDFF.

“In a time when activism is urgent,” the HSDFF jury wrote, “the film shows the power of people standing up for their communities and what they believe in. With a character-driven and playful approach, the film paints an endearing portrait of Sallie, and fellow retirees Diane and Savan, as they take on the serious work of organizing against toxic coal ash.”

Robideaux concludes his director’s statement by writing, “At its core, Sallie’s Ashes is not just about coal ash. It’s a reminder that the most unlikely voices can carry the greatest weight; and that sometimes, the fight for the future rests in the hands of those who know they won’t live to see it.”