The Biggest Little Farm

This screening took place on Monday, August 5, 2019 at 6:30 pmYukon Arts Centre

The back-to-nature doc that was a festival hit last winter hits the big screen in Whitehorse! The Biggest Little Farm follows two dreamers and their beloved dog when they trade their tiny L.A. apartment for 200 acres of barren farmland and a dream to harvest in harmony with nature. The film unfolds over 8 years and witnesses the couple build one of the most diverse farms of its kind in complete coexistence with nature.

 

"If you grew up reading storybooks about small family farms stocked with ducks and pigs and lambs and loyal sheepdogs, the documentary "The Biggest Little Farm" will probably make you happy...

The adorable animated interludes; Jeff Beal's Aaron Copland-esque, Americana-saturated score; John Chester's "And then I learned..." narration, and the many lyrical images of the Chesters and their employee backlit by honeyed sunlight, are all a bit much at times: more selling than telling.

But once the Chesters get settled in and realize just how many moving pieces there are on even a small farm, the movie starts to feel more grounded and transparent. The farmers are repeatedly required to figure out solutions to urgent, everyday problems, such as how to stop snails from infesting their lemon trees, how to keep coyotes from killing their ducks without having to kill the coyotes, too, and how to get an orphaned lamb to adulthood without having to put it down prematurely. "The Biggest Little Farm" is most fascinating as an account of people who made a dream come true, then realized that keeping it alive is hard, often heartbreaking work."

- Matt Zoller Seitz, Rogerebert.com