Look & See: Wendell Berry’s Kentucky

Premiered April 23, 2018

Directed by

Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell

A portrait of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, through the eyes of beloved poet & farmer Wendell Berry.

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About the Documentary

Look & See: Wendell Berry’s Kentucky is a portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America as seen through the mind’s eye of writer, farmer, and activist Wendell Berry, in his native Henry County, Kentucky, a place mourning the loss of a bygone way of life that was once the cornerstone of America.

Through the poetic and prescient words of the prize-winning author of more than 40 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and the testimonies of his family and neighbors — all deeply affected by the industrial and economic changes to their agrarian way of life — we see the changing landscapes of rural America and the redemptive beauty in taking the unworn path, all in communities trying to maintain their own ties to the land. Look & See is directed by Laura Dunn and executive produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford.

The Filmmaker

Laura Dunn started making documentaries in response to her undergraduate experience at Yale University. Through a chronicle of labor strikes on campus, The Subtext of a Yale Education examines the corporatization of higher education. She then returned to her birthplace to make Green, a sobering look at environmental racism along the Mississippi River petrochemical corridor, a.k.a. “Cancer Alley.” Other work includes experimental films Baby, a personal take on population issues, and Become the Sky, an ecological map of power in Texas. Her first feature documentary, The Unforeseen, executive produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was released theatrically, and broadcast on the Sundance Channel. Look & See: Wendell Berry’s Kentucky premiered at Sundance and Berlinale, won a Visual Design Prize at SXSW, and the Grand Jury Prize at the Nashville Film Festival. Other honors include a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, Student Academy Award, Yale’s Trumbull Fine Arts Prize, International Documentary Association Pare Lorenz Grant, and an Independent Spirit “Truer than Fiction” Award. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and six young boys.

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