"The Biggest Little Farm" film response

[Shepherd]

Dear Wacco readers,
This afternoon I went to the Rialto Theatre in Sebastopol to see the amazing film “The Biggest Little Farm,” which I found very thrilling and evocative. It is apparently also showing at the Summerfield Cinema in Santa Rosa.

So I am writing a review of it. My rough draft follows and is attached. I send it to you both to recommend that you see it and also to solicit your comments on how to improve it before sending it to my editors. What might you delete or add? Once you see the film, might you have a response that I could quote? Feel free to send this email to others.

If you have suggestions as to what to add or subtract, please do not just make the changes, but suggest what they would be. I will begin sending it out to my editors Tuesday and in the days to come.
Thanks for any help,
Shepherd


The Biggest Little Farm Film, By Shepherd Bliss, [email protected]

“Go see ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ film at Sebastopol’s Rialto, if you want a glimmer of hope for the future,” writes one person on a local website. “It’ll blow your heart and mind and make you feel in love with this intrepid couple.”

Santa Rosa’s Summerfield Cinema is also showing the film, both theaters until early June. The website Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 91% recommendation.

I “was so heartened for our world. I love it. I want to live there,” added someone else. “Loved, loved it!,” according to another person.

This organic farmer cannot remember the last time I went to a theater to see a film. It takes a lot to get me off-the-farm that has been my main work for the last 27 years, after leaving full-time college teaching. I enjoy films, but I usually wait until I can watch them on DVDs.

Perhaps you have considered abandoning city-living--especially at our current perilous time--for a country life. I returned to the work of my mother’s Iowa farming family. If you have considered abandoning city-living for a country life, this film could speak to you.

Having seen various wild-west films about farms over the years, this film is a relief. It reveals how a couple leaves the city to start a traditional food farm, Apricot Lane Farm, about forty miles from Los Angeles. They adopt a dog,Todd--one of the film’s heroes.

Though the soil is barren and hard, the ground is like concrete, and they are plagued with a record drought and wild fire, they thrive.

John and Molly Chester had considered starting a farm. Their goal--manage the farm with nature in mind in the old-fashioned way. A farm-whisperer helps them.

This film is “not just idealism but practical idealism, and the struggle that maintaining it requires,” according to film reviewer Bill Goodykoonitz.

Farming in harmony with nature is the Chesters’ goal. They return to an old-fashioned way of farming. The film provides footage of various animals, pests, coyotes, snails, and other natural creatures.

(Shepherd Bliss operates Sebastopol’s organic Kokopelli Farm.)