INDEPENDENT LENS
FARMER/VETERAN
MONDAY, MAY 29 @ 8:00PM
Home from three combat tours in Iraq, Alex Sutton forges a new identity as a farmer, hatching chicks and raising goats on 43 acres in rural North Carolina. Farmer/Veteran shows Alex diving into life on the farm with his new love Jessica, while the traumas of war linger on.
The stories he tells about battlefield experiences become unmoored from reality as he cycles between states of heightened awareness and “feeling zombified” from a cocktail of prescriptions meant to keep him stable. For the viewer, as for Alex, what to believe about his past is uncertain as we learn more of his own complicated truths. The farm becomes a terrain to unearth what is buried, what it really means to be “the perfect soldier,” and where to find the way forward.
