''Sweetgrass'' is a 2009 documentary film that follows modern-day shepherds as they lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. It was directed by

Lucien Castaing-Taylor Lucien Giles Castaing-Taylor (born 10 January 1966, Liverpool, United Kingdom) is a British anthropologist and artist who works in film, video, and photography. Biography Castaing-Taylor received his B.A. at Cambridge University and his PhD at t ...

, a

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

, and produced by his wife Ilisa Barbash. The title derives from Sweet Grass County, one of several in which the film was shot.

Production and premiere

Recording first began in the spring of 2001, when Barbash and Castaing-Taylor first heard of a family of Norwegian‐American sheepherders in Montana. These herders were among the last to trail their band of sheep long distances through Montana's mountains. After 8 years of filming and development, it premiered at the

59th Berlin International Film Festival The 59th Berlin International Film Festival was held from 5 February to 15 February 2009. The opening film of the festival was Tom Tykwer’s '' The International'', screened out of competition. Costa-Gavras's immigrant drama '' Eden Is West'' ser ...

. Since then it has regularly screened worldwide and distributed theatrically by

Cinema Guild The Cinema Guild Inc. is a film distribution company. It was established by Philip and Mary-Ann Hobel, producers known for their work in documentaries and features, including the film ''Tender Mercies''. Since 1968, the Cinema Guild has been a ...

. In the United States, it premiered at the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is ...

, and in Montana at the

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is an annual non-fiction film festival held in Missoula, Montana each February. The event showcases documentary films from around the world. The festival first began in 2003 as a seven-day event. It is now a ten- ...

in Missoula, where it received the Big Sky Artistic Excellence Award.

Critical response

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 97%. The website's critical consensus reads, "At once tender and unsentimental, ''Sweetgrass'' gracefully captures the beauty and hardships of a dying way of life." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Film critics have praised the film as "an anthropological work of art," focusing on its aesthetic

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

, such as a lack of music and narration. The film is a ''New York Times'' Critic's Pick and a ''Washington Post'' Critic's Pick, and

Manohla Dargis Manohla June Dargis () is an American film critic. She is one of the chief film critics for ''The New York Times''. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Career Before being a film critic for ''The New York Times'', ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described it as "the first essential movie" of 2010.

Production and premiere

Critical response

See also

References

External links