Photo by Ross Lavigne

By Hayley Ferguson

Clay, Creativity, and the Comeback

Local filmmaker ready to premiere documentary on Medalta lost history

Sep 17, 2019 | 1:24 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – When visiting the museum at Medalta, you’ll learn about the clay district as it thrived from 1912 to 1954.

According to local filmmaker Luke Fandrich though, the story of Medalta didn’t end when the factory doors closed.

Fandrich has been working on his documentary “Clay, Creativity, and the Comeback” since April.

It will premiere Wednesday evening at Medalta.

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The documentary looks at the history of Medalta as people in the community fought to bring back life to the abandoned site once again.

“I was always kind of fascinated about what took place at Medalta. We know Medalta now as a national historic site. But there’s not a lot of information between the 1950s when it closed, up until really the early 2000s when people could even access the site. So there was a lot of history there that there was no documentation of.” Fandrich said.

Fandrich says that it was important to him that this story was told.

“I think a lot of people in Medicine Hat aren’t really familiar with that history at all of what happened after Medalta closed down and how it got to this point. And I’m really excited to see what that reaction is like. Sharing something that is so close to home that most people don’t really know about.” He continued. “It’s not something you can look up online and read somewhere. All of these are oral histories. So to actually have their first-hand experience and to hear that was actually really amazing.”

Admission to the Wednesday showing is free and begins at 6 p.m.

Fandrich says for those who can not make the event, the documentary will be able to watch it online starting September 20th on his website.