Green Mountain Films Present: FAR OUT Film Screening and Discussion
Thursday, May 21, 2026, 7:30 pm until 9:30 pm
The screening will include a discussion with director Charles Light; Sam Lovejoy, Montague Farm commune member and anti-nuclear activist; and Verandah Porche, poet and long time member of the Packer Corners farm
Film About Local Communes to Play at Shea in Turners Falls
“The local filmmaker's feature drew a crowd of more than 550 to its premiere at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro and played there for more than a month… The doc reminds us what was so counter about the counterculture — the insistence on rethinking and questioning everything. Far Out has an energy that could inspire young activists despondent about the current state of American institutions to do some community building of their own.”
–Margot Harrison, Seven Days
It also drew the most viewers to the Latchis in the last five years, except Barbie.
Far Out: Life On & After the Commune, an 85 minute documentary tells the story of two rural New England communal farms. The film will show at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 21 at the Shea Theater, 71 Avenue A, Turners Falls. The screening will include a discussion with director Charles Light; Sam Lovejoy, Montague Farm commune member and anti-nuclear activist; and Verandah Porche, poet and long time member of the Packer Corners farm. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door.
The film’s story begins in the summer of 1968, in the middle of a left wing faction fight, when a group of radical journalists from Liberation News Service (LNS) left New York City for the country. They founded two communes–at Packer Corners in Guilford, VT and in Montague, MA.
After leaving the city and turning away from national politics, the group of mostly young city slickers became pioneers in the back-to-the-land and organic farming movement. With the help of their neighbors, they spent the first five years learning rudimentary agricultural skills as well as how to live and work with each other as a communal family.
In 1973 when the local utility proposed a giant twin nuclear plant four miles from the Montague Farm, they became active opponents. In a dramatic act of civil disobedience, Sam Lovejoy, from the Montague Farm, toppled a 500-foot weather tower on the planned nuclear site. He turned himself in, and after a trial where he represented himself and drew national attention, was acquitted.
Subsequently, the group became leaders in the burgeoning No Nukes movement–from the battles over the Seabrook nuclear plant to Diablo Canyon in California and scores of reactor sites in between. In 1979, they teamed up with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, John Hall, Graham Nash and other committed rock stars to help produce five nights of sold out concerts at Madison Square Garden and a 250,000-person rally in New York City.
Aside from original music, composed and performed by Patty Carpenter and the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band, Far Out includes music from Country Joe McDonald, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, John Hall, Jesse Colin Young, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Steve Stills, Pete Seeger and others.
The Packer Corners farm also returned to politics, aiding in the anti-nuclear fight, but also by engaging with the local community through producing outdoor plays such as Midsummer Night’s Dream, Alice in Wonderland, and The Tempest.
Far Out has played to sold out houses in Brattleboro, Burlington, and Montpelier, VT; Amherst, Turners Falls and Newburyport, MA; Los Angeles and has been screened theatrically more than 200 times in over 60 theaters–some for extended runs.
Blending contemporary interviews and a remarkable trove of original archival footage, Far Out is lively, humorous, inspiring and irreverent. The point of view is honest rather than nostalgic. The film is vital, telling the history but hewing to the universal themes of how we grapple--over a lifetime--with politics, relationships, morality, spirituality, civic engagement and finding our home.
The film traces fifty years in the lives of this group of New England writers, activists and artists. It conveys not only how these “hippies” transformed Vermont and western Massachusetts, but also how rural life and the people they met changed them.
If you have questions or would like more information, or if you are press and would like a full press kit with photos, please go to our website, www.gmpfilms.com and/or contact Charles Light at (413) 348-9005
or clight@gmpfilms.com
