MILK MEN
2015 | 76 minutes | Editor
Psychologist and filmmaker Jan Haaken revisits the region where she spent childhood summers on her aunt and uncle’s dairy farm, following four farming families as they try to survive amidst intense pressures that have led most small and medium-sized dairies to go under. The film provides a unique window into family relationships — and human relationships with cows — and probes public discomfort with industrializing an area of agriculture long associated with rural America.
“... a sometimes dirty, sometimes beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, always interesting journey from how things were to how they are. ”
“... shatters myths about American dairy farming and brings the much-needed voices of farmers into the debate on food production.”
“MILK MEN addresses tough questions, from animal and labor welfare to the role of women in family farming. ”
“In the world of MILK MEN, easy biases fall away as the backbreaking complexities of a way of life reveal themselves.”