Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, May 16: HANNA RANCH
Mitch Dickman’s chronicle of the life and legacy of an eco-rancher debuted at Denver last year and went on to screen at the Durango Film Festival earlier this year.
Eric Schlosser, who serves as executive producer, famously wrote about “eco-cowboy” Kirk Hanna in FAST FOOD NATION, a Colorado cattleman who saw the importance of holistic resource management on his family’s ranch and became the unlikely bridge between seemingly disparate constituencies – environmentalists and ranchers. Dickman’s engaging film details Hanna’s life, his prescient grasp of the dangers of urban overdevelopment, and forward-thinking drive for land conservation. Born into a ranch family, the early death of his father eventually led to the unification of two adjacent ranches via his mother’s remarriage. But with this commingled family came complicated inheritance issues, infighting, and egos – all handled, to Dickman’s credit, with finesse and relative economy. For a time, with one quarrelsome brother out of the way, Hanna began to accomplish much, not only on his own ranch, but for embattled cattlemen around the West. Personal demons surfaced, however, eventually leading the charismatic Hanna to claim his own life. While the balance between Hanna’s family dynamics and his public activities feels a bit off – the former remain far more compelling, with particularly resonant interviews with his widow and younger brother – Dickman is quite good at engendering genuine curiosity about Hanna, his family, and their story.
what (not) to doc 