Community Groups Host Back-to-Back Screenings of Award-Winning Nuclear Waste Documentary To Use a Mountain in Parsons at Parsons Municipal Auditorium

PeaceWorks Kansas City
4509 Walnut, KC MO, peaceworkskc@gmail.com

Date: July 2, 2026

For immediate release

Contact: Ann Suellentrop, annsuellen@gmail.com , 913-271-7925

Community Groups Host Back-to-Back Screenings of Award-Winning Nuclear Waste Documentary To Use a Mountain in Parsons and Kansas City
Director Casey Carter will attend July 11 and 12 screenings as regional communities confront new nuclear projects, weapons production, and questions of public consent.

PARSONS, KS / KANSAS CITY, MO - Community advocacy organizations in Southeast Kansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas City will host back-to-back public screenings of the award-winning documentary To Use a Mountain on July 11 in Parsons, Kansas, and July 12 in Kansas City, Missouri, with director Casey Carter present for Q&As at both events.

The screenings arrive as Southeast Kansas and Kansas City face separate but connected nuclear flashpoints amid a broader federal push to accelerate nuclear energy and weapons programs. In Parsons, Deep Fission has proposed an underground nuclear reactor pilot project at Great Plains Industrial Park, promoted in part as an energy solution for data centers and other large power users, raising community concerns about safety, oversight, waste, and public consent. In Kansas City, organizers who recently mobilized around federal hearings on expanded plutonium pit production are challenging the city's role in the nuclear weapons complex, including the Kansas City National Security Campus and the broader push to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

More than 90,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel remain stored across the United States, with no permanent geologic repository in operation, and the amount growing by roughly 2,000 metric tons each year. As federal agencies move to accelerate new nuclear energy projects and expand weapons production, the screenings provoke questions about what happens when national nuclear ambitions become local responsibilities - and when communities are asked to accept risks and obligations that may last for generations.

To Use a Mountain follows six rural American communities that were studied in the 1980s as possible burial sites for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Moving through landscapes, archives, testimony, geology, and memory, the film examines how federal nuclear decisions mark real places and the people who live there - and how communities have resisted, organized, and insisted on being heard. In doing so, the film speaks to enduring questions of environmental justice, American history, and the pressures now facing rural communities as new energy, defense, and data-center infrastructure is advanced in the name of national necessity.

"This film is a masterpiece in showing how ordinary folks rose up in 6 rural communities to defend their families and land," said Ann Suellentrop, of PeaceWorks Kansas City. "It shows the audacity of targeting these communities to dump the nation's waste on places that had nothing to do with creating it, and it is particularly timely now with the rush to advance new nuclear energy plants and waste disposal schemes with little to no health and environmental safety regulations."

"To Use a Mountain presents a people's history, in contrast to the technical and governmental history," said director Casey Carter. "People's homes, communities, and memories, are reduced to technical analysis and utilitarian opportunities for the federal government and nuclear industry. The film is about nuclear waste, yes, but it's also about democracy, memory, land, and the people who are asked to inherit the consequences of decisions they did not make. Bringing the film to Parsons and Kansas City at this moment gives a renewed urgency to those questions and connects the voices in the film with the voices of the local community."

The July 11 Parsons screening is hosted by Prairie Dog Alliance, LEAD Agency, and PeaceWorks Kansas City in relation to the Deep Fission pilot project proposed for Parsons. The July 12 Kansas City screening is hosted by the No Nukes KC Coalition, a group being created by KC organizations such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Veterans for Peace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and PeaceWorks Kansas City - in relation to the Kansas City National Security Campus, plutonium pit production, and nuclear weapons modernization.

The film premiered in 2025 in the international competition at Visions du Réel, where it was awarded the special jury prize, followed by its U.S. premiere at the Dallas Film Festival. It has since screened at numerous festivals in the US and internationally.

The Kansas screenings are part of a growing national series of theatrical and community screenings bringing To Use a Mountain to places directly connected to the nuclear age - including upcoming events in Boulder, Colorado, near Rocky Flats; and Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues. To Use a Mountain opens in NYC with a one-week theatrical run at DCTV Firehouse Cinema in New York City from August 21-27.

Screening Details
Parsons, Kansas
To Use a Mountain
Saturday, July 11, 7:30 pm
Parsons Municipal Auditorium
112 S. 17th St.
Parsons, KS 67357
Hosted by Prairie Dog Alliance, LEAD Agency, and PeaceWorks Kansas City
Director Casey Carter present for Q&A

Kansas City, Missouri
To Use a Mountain
Sunday, July 12, 7:00pm
Stray Cat Film Center
1662 Broadway Blvd,
Kansas City, MO 64108
Hosted by No Nukes KC Coalition
Director Casey Carter present for Q&A
Tickets / RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/.../to-use-a-mountain-no-nukes...
Film Press Contact:
Casey Carter
touseamountain@gmail.com
423-292-9245
www.touseamountain.com