USA Projects

Working Out is a 60-minute documentary that explores the lives of five generations of extended families tracing their Midwestern roots to the mid-nineteenth century in and around the town of Leader, Minnesota, in Cass County, on the edge of Minnesota’s northern lakes country.

The narrative, combining contemporary footage with historical still photographs, quietly but dramatically mines the interwoven histories and circumstances surrounding the lives of family members with diverse perspectives, motives and experiences who are nonetheless committed to living and working in this rural community.

I am seeking support to complete production of the film including equipment purchase and rental, travel costs associated with several additional location shoots in Minnesota, professional audio and video editing, and other post-production work.

From the couple who left over half a century ago to find their fortune in post-WWII California only to return home two years later to farm difficult land, to the self-taught mechanic who imagines and builds eccentric but roadworthy cars and motorcycles from collections of spare parts in his backyard shop, to the couple who revive a small-town bar and restaurant by inventing a summer tourist attraction – the hog-and-family-friendly L.A. (Leader Area) Pig Races - this is a story of creativity, inventiveness, resourcefulness, love of family, and commitment to land and place and community-centered values.

The vision for Working Out emerged in 2005 when I travelled to a family reunion held at The Bears Den, a bar and supper club in Leader, Minnesota. The town of Leader - little more than a wide spot in the road - has been the focal point of community life for area farmers for generations. Cass County has never been a rich place by even the most modest definition.

Since its settlement in the 1850's, most Leader-area farmers needed to “work out”, in other words at wage-paying jobs off the farm, to earn a living for their families. Even in times when it was uncommon for their city sisters to work for pay, farm women from the surrounding countryside often “worked out” at local factories or in nearby towns, and sometimes at the Brainerd Lakes resorts, an hour’s drive away.

Returning to my home place after so long a time brought me back in touch with a way of thinking about life and family that focuses not on money, or status, or possessions but instead places value on personal relationships, a feeling of belonging to place with its communal work and play, and a sense of past and future that relies on the participation and contributions of every member of the community.

Working Out focuses on these qualities and shared experiences as it tells the story of the people of the village of Leader in Cass County, their relationships to one another and to the land they live on, and the feelings they have for their way of life that has shaped their shared histories and journeys.

Working Out is a story of determination, commitment and struggle told through the eyes of rural people who are under-represented in contemporary art and media, yet whose experiences are heartfelt and universal, defining their humanity and extending across the boundaries of wealth, class, place, ethnicity, and education.