Welcome to POV .
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of
Wisconsin Public Television's Director's Cut .
Tonight we bring you a film
that's been described as a love story, a farm story
and a story of contemporary rural America in Farmsteaders .
Farmsteaders follows the journey of Nick and Celeste Nolan
and their young family as they try to resurrect
Nick's grandfather's dairy farm.
For the Nolan family, their motivation is simple,
save the farm from extinction, the same fate met by
almost 5 million other farms in the U.S.
due to fierce competition from corporate food companies.
The Nolans feel a connection to each other
and the land they fight to save.
With so much at stake, they are a testament to persistence
as they balance the stress of running a small farm
and raising young children.
Nick Nolan wouldn't have it any other way
believing that in life everything beautiful
is created out of pain and hard work .
In addition to being a filmmaker,
North Carolina-based director Shaena Mallett
is also a photographer, educator and a farmer herself.
The Huffington Post says of her film:
" It's not a film about the evils of the big guys,
"but an intimate look and celebration
"of the small family farm."
Farmsteaders starts now on Wisconsin Public Television,
your home for independent film.