Below is my conversation with Sam Mirpoorian, the director of Greener Pastures, a documentary feature being screened at this year’s Heartland International Film Festival. We talk about Sam’s connection to the subject matter, finding trust in the film’s subjects, and the length of the film’s shoot, among other things. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Ben Sears: What was the process like of finding the subjects of the film?

Sam Mirpoorian: It started in the spring of 2018 after doing discovery and speaking to well over 100 farmers over a 6 or 7 month period. I just identified farmers that had some kind of direct or indirect correlation to suicide, whether they had suicide ideation or a suicide attempt themselves, or a family member had died by suicide. That’s kind of the genesis of the film started, and from there, it kind of just happened very serendipitously where Jeff was featured in an HBO & Vice piece on farmers and mental health in August. I reached out to him on Facebook. It was a shot in the dark, I didn’t think he would get back to me, but he responded 10 minutes later, and I was out filming with him in October. And then I went to a couple farmers’ union events in Indiana, and I pitched the story to some folks there, and they mentioned Chris Peterson. Chris was a former Iowa President of the farmers union, he’s a board member, he’s kind of like the Godfather of agriculture of the Midwest. You see in the film where a lot of Democratic candidates – Barack Obama, the Clinton’s, Jon Edwards, Al Gore – they would always come and seek his endorsement because they’d always want to start off the Iowa caucus in the right direction. So while I was filming with Chris, he didn’t know who Jay was, but he sent me an article to a Modern Farmer magazine article that was about Jay. From there, I reached out to Jay on Facebook, and he responded. Juliette, I had reached out a couple times on a dairy farmers group on Facebook. She had gotten back to me after a friend had died by suicide.

BS: I imagine you’ve got to have a lot of patience, having to weave through so many potential candidates until you finally find the right one.

SM: Well, you see how Becky is like a main character in the film – she didn’t become a thought in my mind until, like, a year and a half into filming. So that’s one of the examples of being patient and following the story, seeing what naturally and organically unfolds. It worked out really well, and this was a perfect situation where the passing of the torch, and this multi-generational look at how a parent can pass down the legacy to their child. I thought she depicted that really well.

BS: So did you have any interest in farming before you started this?

SM: I had no interest in farming, I had no idea, no relatives that were farmers. I’m Iranian-American, so my culture has always been around going to college and getting your degree, and sticking to something practical. Never thought about filmmaking, never thought about farming, never thought about any of these things. And then my mentor, Andrew Cohn, who did Medora and Night School, was helping me with some projects and pushing me in the right direction, and he told me to make a feature, and I can get you funding for it. So he introduced me to the Catapult Film Fund in San Francisco. I received a $20,000 development grant to start developing the project and the story. So Andrew was really instrumental in helping me get in the mindset of a feature because I didn’t really know what to do.

But I heard an NPR story based on CDC statistics that farmers and agriculture workers have the highest rate of suicide among any profession in the US. My buddy Adam, who’s also a cinematographer on the film with me, mentioned the same concept and story from a guy that he was working in a warehouse with. So it all just started as an idea, and then Andrew gave me some inspiration and motivation to turn it into something, and I did the legwork and research.

BS: How long did the research portion of it take?

SM: Well, the concept of development is kind of like the bridge between research and production. Research and development started roughly around March of 2018 and it went all the way until 2019, while still shooting and moving the needle forward.

BS: Did you always plan on shooting for so long?

SM: No, Covid played a really big role. We were looking to wrap shooting in 2020 because of the election, and Becky was the arc. We shot in 2021 and 2022, and it just helped to put a bow tie on the end of the film. But the climactic moment is the election in 2020, and then the wrap-up and the aftermath was in 2021 and 2022. I was 24 at the time when I started it, and I’m 30 now, so I never anticipated or imagined the film being as longitudinal as it was.

BS: Did you ever think about cutting it short, or thinking you had enough already when the pandemic started?

SM: That’s a great question because it was my debut feature, and first time editing something like this. I had no idea how to go about it, so I edited the film and we got rejected at every single festival. We thought we were there, and we absolutely weren’t. We brought in another editor, she worked on it for another 9 months, really left no stone unturned, and that’s when we were able to identify extra things that we needed to go get, like extra sound bites, and things to fill in the gaps and the holes. So it was a really thorough process about understanding story and the timeline and the process of where we are, thinking we were done and we’re absolutely not. That happens a lot with features, and this was no exception.

BS: I imagine that when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t have as clear of a sense of what the narrative of the film is going to look like.

SM: No, you have no idea. I think you go into it with the hopes that it’s going to develop the way you envision it, but almost every single time, it evolves and morphs and shapes into something you wouldn’t even imagine. You have to craft it as best as you can because that’s how you get money and funding. A few weeks ago, I was looking at some of the older decks that I wrote, and the only thing that was the same was Jeff. Chris and Becky weren’t on there, Jay wasn’t on there, Juliette wasn’t on there – it changed entirely. I thought that was really funny, and it makes a lot of sense because that’s just how it works. But obviously the construct and the foundation was there of mental health, globalization, mechanization, and climate change.

BS: Did you set out wanting to make a statement with this, or did just want to tell the stories of these peoples lives, and then the statement kind of makes itself?

SM: One thing that Andrew taught me is that information overload, to a certain extent, can get boring and overwhelming as a viewer. You can make these informational documentaries that have talking heads, or you can do these character studies, and that was the thing I was most attracted to. When you do talking head and informational pieces, you don’t have to build trust. You just pop in, shoot what you get, and you get out. There was a huge sense of pride, and love and respect about the process of getting them to trust you, and letting you into their home. That’s something earned and not given, and I think that’s why I really wanted to tell this film in the most humanistic way as possible. Those bigger, day-to-day issues, they easily presented themselves. It came so naturally, and we didn’t have to worry about it.

BS: Was it hard for your subjects to trust you to the extent that they did?

SM: Some were harder than others. I would say Jay and Juliette were the easiest. They were very trusty, and they gave us access to everything. Chris and Becky got to that point, but it probably took a year or two. Jeff had boundaries – every now and then I’d flirt with him, I’d cross over, and he’d get really upset, but ultimately he’s really happy with the film. The biggest thing with the film, is that you can see everyone’s family except Jeff. He had boundaries, and we respected that, but obviously as a filmmaker, you want to get access to every single nook and cranny of someone’s life. I think it worked out well though. Who’s to say if it would have worked out better or worse if we did or didn’t have more access?

BS: Do you still keep in touch with everyone?

SM: Yea, they’ve all been to at least one festival screening except Juliette because we just haven’t been in Kansas. I talk to them probably a couple times a week on Facebook. They’re all very responsive, and they’re all really happy to see the updates – every time I share something on Facebook, they like it or they love it. They’re really proud of it.

BS: All of the subjects are in the Midwest. Did you seek to stick to the Midwest, or did you want to go nationwide at any point?

SM: That was something we had, not necessarily fears, but concerns about how it would be received. I think, initially, I just tried to do whatever I could possibly do with the largest reach when I didn’t have any money. I said ok, I can drive to this state, then this state and this state, and I know that going to dairy farms in upstate New York or Vermont, or Georgia, it would have been more expensive and less tangible. Adam has family in Chicago, and I would stay with them for an extended period of time and bounce between Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. It’s like a perfect halfway spot, so logistically it just made the most sense. But we definitely thought about trying to extend the story, but we just found a good patch of people to follow here.

BS: Maybe that’s what the sequel can be.

SM: [laughs] Yea, before the film, I never really thought about how important soil health is, or how important farmers are. Without them, we’re not eating. It’s as simple as that, but it’s very complex as well with policy, and the weather, I just have a strong appreciation for it now.

BS: A lot of people have a kind of preconceived, simplified notion of farmers and who they are and what they want.

SM: People don’t really understand how brilliant they are, too. They’re biologists, they’re engineers, they’re chemists.

BS: It’s more than just planting seeds in the ground.

SM: Right. Equipment breaks down every hour, on the hour. They can’t wait for a John Deere representative to come out on Monday if something breaks down on Friday. They have to figure it out then and there, and I got to see that several times. It just gives you a new appreciation as far as how great they are.

Greener Pastures will screen as part of the 2023 Heartland International Film Festival. Buy virtual and in-person tickets here.