The Land

The Land

Directed by Stephen Wallace Pruitt
U.S. | 2019 | Narrative
88 minutes | English

“The Land” tells the compelling story of a marriage on the precipice of an uncertain future. By leveraging the very land that has been in his family for generations, sixty-something farming couple John (Herman Johansen) and Mary Lou (Kathleen Warfel) expanded their family farm into the largest in Sumner County, Kan. Now, as crop and land prices fall, John and Mary Lou face the impending loss of the only life they’ve ever known. Like the ever-shifting Kansas winds that daily buffet their farm, Mary Lou’s regard for John turns without warning, her attitude abruptly changing from calm to calamitous. And John, once confident, determined, and proud, seems incapable of turning back the clock and putting things right. Inspired by those too old to start over and yet too young to give up, the film explores the question: “Are we more than what we do?” Kansas City filmmakers Stephen Wallace Pruitt and Mary Settle Pruitt’s “The Tree” screened at SLIFF in 2017.