Papertown Documentary, Featuring New Dave Matthews Song, Will Premiere at MountainFilm

A trailer released today gives a first look at Papertown, a documentary by Jeremy Seifert that captures the fallout from the sudden closure of a paper mill that defined Canton, North Carolina for 115 years. The film will have its world premiere at the MountainFilm Festival in Colorado on May 22.

The closure set off a wrenching three-month period for the Appalachian community. Seifert’s camera follows the town’s attempts to reckon with the economic collapse and the distant corporate decisions that triggered it. A new song by Dave Matthews anchors the project — a quiet, somber title track that underscores the documentary’s tone rather than overriding it.

Matthews, in a statement, called the film “stunning. It’s heartbreaking, but still so hopeful. It’s full of hope, in spite of this class system where the power sits in the hands of far away people, which is so wrong.” The singer’s involvement connects the local story to a broader audience, though the documentary’s gravity comes from the residents themselves, not from the marquee name.

MountainFilm, a festival known for documentaries rooted in place and social fabric, provides a fitting launch. Papertown joins a lineage of work that treats regional collapse not as a metaphor, but as a lived reality. The trailer’s brief excerpt of the song suggests something subdued, a texture rather than a centerpiece. For a story about what evaporates when an industry vanishes overnight, that restraint feels appropriate.