By Scott Wyman, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) 

Butter up the popcorn and super-size the Coke because coming to theaters is the saga of the ash heap that's as unpopular as Hannibal Lecter.

OK. So it won't be showing at a Muvico megaplex. Two environmental activist-filmmakers see the ash as a story of governmental misdeeds and social injustice waiting to be shown to the world. Their current documentary on environmental racism is set to play at film festivals in Alaska and Houston.

"It's absolutely appalling the way Philadelphia has handled this,"

said the film's director, Joanna Michael. "There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. I want people to be educated about what's going on because too many times government tried to cloud the issue and didn't want people to know."

They hope their latest effort will make the film festival circuit and places that show educational movies.

The duo had been shooting in South Florida as the latest chapter of the ash tale unfolded and would like to complete the film, The Ash Barge Odyssey, later this year. Broward County forced state officials and Waste Management Inc. to abandon plans this week to bury the 3,000 tons of incinerated trash in a landfill near Pompano Beach.

The ash now remains on a barge in the St. Lucie Canal with little chance of a final resting spot being found any time soon. It has sat there since last spring. The ash is part of a large load that sailed from Philadelphia in 1987 in search of a welcoming landfill, only to be rejected by country after country. Most was dumped in the ocean, but this portion was left on a remote beach in Haiti before being returned to the United States.

To County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, a film on the ash is fitting.

Jacobs, who led the fight to keep the waste out of Broward, said communities need to understand where poor planning can lead.

"There is an important lesson to be learned here over what happens when communities don't act responsibly on handling their waste," she said.

The Philadelphia-based filmmakers said they remembered the tale of the ash barge from 15 years ago, but didn't realize it remained a problem until Michael's parents in Florida sent newspaper clippings about the barge being in the St. Lucie.

They've interviewed a woman from Haiti now living in Philadelphia who enjoyed visiting the beach in Gonaives, Haiti, as a youth but has been told by her aunt not to go back now because the trash made it unsafe.

And they talked to the barge captain who feels he's a loser in the drawn-out battle.A nd of course there's the ash.

They took a bottle full of it back home and want to test it to get their own view on whether it's contaminated. Waste Management Inc. and environmental regulators say no; scientists hired by Greenpeace say yes.

They hope to know the final resolution of the ash story by the time they finish shooting. But they understand that could be a long shot considering the last 15 years of problems.

Scott Wyman can be reached at swyman@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4511.