The Last Saw Shop
In a rapidly consolidating industry, 83 year old Carra Blythe holds on to her logging supply shop, a pillar of her Northeast Mississippi community for over 40 years.
In 1982, Wayne and Carra Jo Blythe opened “Wayne’s Logging Supply” a Husqvarna Chainsaw dealership that provided chainsaw repair services and equipment for loggers. Today, at 83, Carra alone continues to sell chainsaw tools and supplies to new and long-time customers. In this experimental live-action and paper collage animated film, WAYNE’S LOGGING SUPPLY will explore the lived experience of Carra, her customers, and the rise of family-based independent logging businesses in Northeast Mississippi. The film will explore how in one lifetime, Carra witnessed the landscape of her home region transform with tree planting initiatives of the 1940s, the influx of sawmills, and the reshaping of relationships to landscape, sense of place, memory, and cultural identity across the US South, now the “wood basket of the world.”
Project website: https://thelastsawshop.com/
Director | Karson Schenk
Producer| Rebecca Louise Carter
Director of Photography | Justin Feltman