Director: Ken Marsolais Producers: Ken Marsolais, Nancy Vick
Description:
Over a decade ago, John Ubaldo, aka “John Boy,” a successful Wall Street investment banker, decided to call it quits. Distraught over the loss of his best friend in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, John traded in his high finance career for 185 acres of land on the Battenkill River in Cambridge, NY to live a quiet life as a small farmer. John wanted to farm the way it was done one-hundred years ago, raising a variety of livestock and crops. But John’s dream of living an uncomplicated traditional agrarian life gets complicated when he comes up against Big Agriculture (Big Ag) and realizes that his methods are not in sync with today’s prevailing agricultural methods. John, the very private farmer, becomes a passionate and outspoken activist lobbying for GMO labeling, animal rights, the preservation of crop diversity and the reduction of chemical fertilizers to help preserve small farms and rural America.
Biography: Ken Marsolais has worked in theater, film and the arts for over forty years. Marsolais produced such Broadway classics as The Shadow Box and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and You Can't Take it With You, which was taped and aired on PBS-TV and Showtime. In addition, Marsolais directed the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1996 Olympics that took place in Savannah, Georgia and was hosted by Walter Cronkite. Award-winning films include Ronald McDonald: The House That Love Built, hosted by Jason Robards; Philip C. Curtis: An American Original, a documentary on one of America's foremost artists, which aired on PBS, and Each Day a Difference, a film on children and adults with extreme disabilities, hosted by Brian Dennehy.
Nancy Vick works with the New York advertising agency Ammirati & Puris, the “hot creative boutique” that created the famous BMW “Ultimate Driving Machine” campaign. Nancy is president emeritus of The American Classical Orchestra and past executive officer of Quill Entertainment. In addition, Vick is a trustee of Video Volunteers of Goa, India and NYC, a multiple award-winning, social entrepreneurial NGO that recruits and trains marginalized members of Indian society to become change-making community video journalists across India.
