I began this intensely personal experimental personal narrative documentary in 1993 when I was in graduate school and after reading “Trifles” a play about a farm woman. Without ever having held a video camera, I knew I needed to make a film about the women who I grew up around. Five years later, I left grad school without having finished this film.  I moved to  Virginia to teach, gained many more filmmaking skills, and returned to the Midwest to finish this piece. 

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In 2005, I received a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship and in 2006 I moved back to South Dakota to finish it.  By this time the technology had evolved and my skills had grown, so much so that I began again from scratch - only one of the original clips is in this piece and several of the women had passed on.  Moving back to the prairie also changed it dramatically - it became much more about the land, than about the women.  Now, 18 South Dakota women speak to the issues of land, connection to it, the prairie, loss of rural and why we leave.  These diverse voices are woven together with a song about my family's farm sale, along with my personal stories of growing up on a farm and lessons the prairie taught me.

Watch 16 minute trailer. http://vimeo.com/23293313shapeimage_10_link_0