The Biggest Little Farm

John and Molly Chester live in an apartment in Los Angeles. Todd, the dog they rescued, will not stop barking and they are evicted. Molly's dream is a farm. They find two hundred acres of dead soil north of the city and decide to bring it back. The film takes eight years. John Chester directs. He was a wildlife filmmaker, so he shot the farm himself from the beginning. The documentary is therefore not assembled afterwards but accumulated in real time. The method is not a single crop but building an ecosystem. That was the approach of their consultant Alan York: revive the soil with cover crops, put animals into the cycle, and balance pest against pest. What makes the film interesting is that it shows how badly this goes: snail infestation, coyotes, drought and fire arrive in turn. The best passages are the solutions coming from unexpected directions. Ducks eat the snails, coyotes reduce the rabbits, owls take the mice; every problem turns out to serve the next species. The emotional centre is the friendship between Emma the pig and Greasy the rooster. Who it is for: viewers who like farming, ecology and nature documentary. Who it is not for: the telling is very optimistic and the financial reality is barely discussed. How the farm is funded is a plain gap in the film.