Forgotten Farms film screening

Documentary film Forgotten Farms screens at Memorial Hall in Shelburne Falls, Sunday June 11, 7pm

The award winning documentary film, Forgotten Farms, will screen Sunday June 11 at Memorial Hall in Shelburne Falls. $5 suggested donation. Our Family Farms and The Shelburne Agricultural Committee are sponsoring this event.  A Q & A follows the screening with filmmakers Sarah Gardner (producer) & Dave Simonds (director) Chris Coffin (Land for Good), Brian Donahue (Brandeis) Warren Facey (Our Family Farms).

Forgotten Farms profiles the New England dairy farmer and examines the class divides in New England’s farm and food communities.   Producer Sarah Gardner: “There’s been a lot of focus on the new local food farmers, so we spent the last three years filming conventional dairy farmers. Many of their farms have been in operation for over a century and we wanted to find a way to tell their story.  Forgotten Farms is their story.”

New England has lost over 10,000 conventional dairy farms in the past 50 years; about 2,000 farms remain. Collectively, they tend 1.2 million acres of farmland and produce almost all of the milk consumed in New England. Director Dave Simonds said, “In our enthusiasm for the local food movement, many of us have forgotten that 75 years ago these farmers were at the center of a thriving local food economy.” Forgotten Farms reconsiders the role of these tenacious farm families. The film gives us a glimpse into the past and a vision of an expanded local agriculture that could serve all of New England’s population.

Dave Simonds (director) directed Cherry Cottage: the Story of an American House, which premiered at the Berkshire International Film Festival in 2013, and screened at festivals around the country. He was a familiar face in the indie-film renaissance of the late 80s and early 90s and his screen credits include Amateur, The Book of Life, Signs and Wonders, The Fish in a Bathtub, Henry Fool, among many others. He appeared in music videos for Everything But the Girl, Beth Orton and others.  He is currently working on a documentary called “The Hoy Boys” and a web series, “Free Advice from an Old Guy.”

Sarah Gardner (producer) teaches environmental planning and is the Associate Director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College. Her areas of research include land use, climate change, agriculture and food systems.  She was a leader of the North Berkshire Keep Farming project, a three-year research initiative. She is the co-chair of the Williamstown Agricultural Commission and a Berkshire Grown board member.  Sarah is a graduate of Smith College, she holds a Masters in Public Policy from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the City University of New York. She has made two short films about tourism and farming in Eleuthera, Bahamas.

Forgotten Farms, screens Sunday June 11 at Memorial Hall, Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls.

$5 suggested donation.