Premieres Monday, Nov. 15, 2021 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV / On Demand
INDEPENDENT LENS "Storm Lake" highlights an acclaimed family-run paper in Iowa, struggling to keep the business alive and to keep citizens informed, as forces conspire to overwhelm their precarious small-town existence. The Hollywood Reporter describes the film as “fascinating subject through fractious times.”
“Storm Lake'' paints a picture of an agricultural community being threatened with change — from corporate to political and environmental forces, all while facing a pandemic. Farmers spend their life savings on new equipment in the hopes of keeping their livelihoods intact, while migrant workers flock to the town — welcome or not — to achieve the American Dream.
Leading the charge to keep the community informed is 63-year-old Art Cullen, an old-school journalist who has dedicated his life to his family’s biweekly newspaper The Storm Lake Times. In 2017, Art won a Pulitzer Prize for his story that challenged powerful corporate interests and local county officials about the pollution of local waterways. While he has the power to change minds and rally votes, his pugnacious voice makes waves. Disgruntled residents don’t always agree with his point of view and have been known to write him and his paper off entirely.
Nearly 2,000 local papers have shuttered in the last 20 years, a crisis accelerated by COVID-19. The stakes have been especially high for the Cullen family; they comprise half The Times’ 10- person team. Art’s 27-year-old son Tom is lead reporter, his wife Dolores the photographer and culture reporter, his older brother John the publisher, and John’s wife Mary the food columnist.
Against tight deadlines and slimmer margins, the Cullens doggedly report on their town, and wonder how the paper will survive as readers — with a preference for their social media feeds — cease to support journalism like they used to.
Filmmakers Jerry Risius and Beth Levison had their cameras rolling throughout 2020, as the pandemic upended life as we knew it. In June 2020, Storm Lake became the COVID-19 epicenter of Iowa, making The Times’ reporting even more vital. The public health catastrophe posed an existential crisis for the paper as ad revenue and newspaper sales suffered a serious blow. Despite the setbacks, the financial losses, and even quarantine, the film documents the Cullens as they continue to deliver the news.
“Answering the question ‘what do we lose when local journalism is gone?’ is an urgent issue with devastating consequences for communities across the country,” said filmmakers Risius and Levison. “We wanted to show the high-stakes nature of what’s going on with media, through the prism of the Cullen family; dedicated, talented, outstanding journalists, who are committed to delivering the news to their town. Their reporting throughout the pandemic showed their resilience, and the critically important role that local journalists play during uncertain times.”
Film Awards:
Director and producer Levison won the New York Women in Film & Television Filmmaker Award for “Storm Lake” at the Provincetown Film Festival, and the film won the Audience Award for best feature at AFI Docs. Both Levison and Risius won the Best Directors Award at the Duluth Superior Film Festival in August 2021, and the film was named Best Documentary Feature Runner Up at the 2021 Woods Hole Film Festival.
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Credits:
Directed by Jerry Risius and Beth Levison. Produced by Beth Levison. Edited by Rachel Shuman. Co-Editor: Leah Boatright. Original score by Andrew Bird with Alan Hampton. Director of Photography Jerry Risius. In Association with Catapult Film and Fund Park Pictures. Executive Directors: Katy Drake Bettner, Sam Bisbee, Pamela Tanner Boll, Sally Jo Fifer, Lois Vossen and Jamie Wolf. ITVS.
