Remembering Wendell Berry
“The like of him will not soon live again in this world, and they will not forget him”
-The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry
Our hearts go out to the Berry family and the folks of Henry County, Kentucky - and to all those who loved Wendell Berry and were inspired by him.
It’s a huge loss; there was no more resonant voice than his that spoke to place and community. His daughter Mary - and all the folks at the Berry Center - continue his legacy by advocating for the issues he wrote so poetically about - small farmers, stewarding communities and healthy regional economies.
Jon and I went to Kentucky to profile only one of the programs of the Berry Center, Our Home Place Meat. We were blessed to have an audience with Wendell and Tanya, as Jon remembers below.
If you would like to learn more about the good work of the Berry Center or make a contribution in Wendell’s memory, go to https://berrycenter.org/.
Lisa Holmes
A note from Jonathan Nastasi, Co-Director & DP
I had the great pleasure to meet Wendell Berry the first time I travelled to Henry County, Kentucky for Fork in the Road. On a sunny and very cold day, Lisa and I drove to his home. We passed it twice but then identified the home correctly by the significant slope on one side of the house that had been written about in several of his books. Rightfully, I felt privileged to spend time with Wendell and Tanya Berry in their home.
We conducted an audio-only interview with Wendell. No cameras. He doesn’t own a computer, much less a cell phone. He was kind enough to allow us to record his remarkable voice. What was immediately striking about this interview was it resembled more of a family visit than working on a documentary film. I set up a boom microphone on a stand which no one seemed to notice. We sat in the living room and Tanya made us coffee.
We asked Wendell questions and those questions went mostly unanswered. But, perhaps they stirred in him some ideas he wanted to express. Afterall, we were making a film in which the antagonist is industrial agriculture so Wendell was probably the best person on Planet Earth to offer their perspective. Tanya had such incredible insight as well so we put a lavalier microphone on her as she moved about the house. Their partnership was truly a thing of beauty to witness for one afternoon.
The result of this afternoon interview, or more aptly visit, grounded and legitimizes our film in ways Vivian, Lisa and I could only imagine. Having captured this early in our process, we had found our north star for the rest of filming Fork.
At the conclusion of our time, Lisa asked him to read an excerpt from an essay. That is when he voiced the following words in his unmistakable Southern cadence, “the future of food is not distinguishable from the future of the land, which is indistinguishable, in turn from the future of human care.”
Fork in the Road was born.