Claymont filmmaker Bilal Motley was writing a script about an explosion at a fictional oil refinery, the same year he quit his management job at a Philly oil plant in 2017.
The next year, Motley went back to work at Philadelphia Energy Solutions in South Philly, since the starving artist’s life wasn’t working out for him. But in 2019, PES suffered an explosion, just like the refinery in his film script.
The PES explosion inspired Motley to create a 30-minute documentary, “Midnight Oil,” which streams for free on Black Public Media’s YouTube channel on Monday, July 17, as part of AfroPoP Digital Shorts.
What happened at Philadelphia Energy Solutions?
On June 21, 2019, a fire at the 150-year-old Philadelphia plant erupted after a vat of butane ignited, triggering a massive explosion.
This ultimately caused the plant to shut down, despite some employees petitioning to keep it open to save their jobs. An estimated 1,000 people worked at the plant.
Mark Smith, CEO of the company that emerged from bankruptcy only a year ago, said in a 2019 statement that the “recent fire at the refinery complex has made it impossible for us to continue operations.”
Why did Motley make ‘Midnight Oil?’
Motley shot the documentary on his cellphone, which includes interviews with co-workers after the explosion happened.
The film captures his co-workers discussing their next steps, while Motley wrestled with his own path forward.
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“Midnight Oil” offers a nuanced look at the ongoing debate about the need to address the growing climate crisis, coupled with retaining jobs in energy sectors that often contribute to environmental injustice.
Motley said some Black and brown people who live near PES claimed that the facility was poisoning people in the community.
Before working on the documentary, the filmmaker said he never really considered the potential impacts that a heavily regulated oil plant could have on the well-being of a community or on the climate.
But after diving into news articles about pollution and climate change, he said his views changed.
At the same time, Motley said he avoided creating controversy at work.
‘I didn’t speak up’
There were moments when he heard coded racist language from co-workers, he said, but he didn’t say anything because he was one of the few Black managers at the plant, and his salary was $150,000.
Motley, who grew up in a Muslim household, said his father is someone who speaks his mind. But the filmmaker said that also affected his father’s employment opportunities.
“I’m in one of those spaces in a corporate environment. When I became a manager, I didn’t speak up,” he said. “I was just holding things in. But in the film, you’ll see it all comes out.”
Although PES eventually shut down, Motley continued to work at the facility three months after the explosion occurred because he was part of a small team of caretakers responsible for making sure the facility didn’t have any leaks or any hazards as the plant was getting prepped to close.
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Motley said he didn’t think the plant was fit to stay open and he caught backlash for that when his statements went public.
It resulted in him getting kicked out of a Facebook group that included his co-workers. He also changed his phone number, to avoid getting nasty calls.
Motely said he doesn’t think many of his co-workers were happy about the documentary, which debuted at the Black Star Film Festival in Philly in 2020.
But he’s thankful he made it because he got to tell a side of the story the public didn’t know about PES, the employees, or himself, he said.
