Susan Bettmann

Freedom & Unity: The Vermont Movie is the first-ever documentary series about Vermont. The six-part film is a collaboration of over four dozen critically acclaimed Vermont filmmakers, led by award-winning filmmaker Nora Jacobson (“Delivered Vacant,” “My Mother’s Early Lovers,” “Nothing Like Dreaming”). Sponsors include the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Community Foundation, Vermont Humanities Council, Bay and Paul Foundation, John M. Bissell Foundation, Green Valley Media, National Life of Vermont Foundation, and the Vermont Country Store. Our advisors are well-known historians, educators, curators, authors, artists, politicians, and activists.

Susan Bettmann’s Painting the Dandelion Resurrection trains the camera on Vermont icon Peter Schumann, co-founder and creative force of Bread and Puppet Theater. And basically he does what the title says—he paints. Schumann narrates in real time as he begins and completes the painting over the course of the film’s half-hour, offering us the rare opportunity to hang out with an artistic heavyweight.

This film is about the work of Joe Picard caring for the land in the Vermont town, Middlesex, where he was raised. Plowing snow, haying, cutting firewood and more, Joe's knowledge of tending the land throughout the seasons represents an intimacy with nature that, in our contemporary computer age, is fast dying out. His work ethic is informed by his Native American and French Canadian heritage.