Documentary chronicles Pulitzer Prize-winning rural paper; can be viewed online through a film festival this Saturday

The Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times (Art is at right)

A new documentary follows how a rural Iowa family has not only persevered in the face of challenges to local journalism, but has thrived and produces an outstanding, award-winning community newspaper.

In fact, the awards—one big one, at least—first prompted filmmaker Jerry Risius' interest in the Cullen family, who own and operate the Storm Lake Times in rural northwestern Iowa, Julie Gammack reports for the Des Moines Register. Risius, an Iowa native, was working in Africa for the late Anthony Bourdain in 2017 when he saw a New York Times story reporting that Editor Art Cullen had won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

"My eyes popped out of my head," Risius told Gammack. "You never see a paper in a small, northern Iowa town win a Pulitzer!" On a trip to visit family soon after, Risius arranged with Art Cullen to spend an afternoon at the paper and shoot some footage in hopes of pitching it as a documentary. The footage got the attention of co-director Beth Levison, but "at first, the Emmy and Peabody-winning independent producer didn't bite on the project. Then, in July of 2018, Levinson read a column by Cullen that appeared in The New York Times titled "In My Town, We Need Immigrants." The Storm Lake editor wrote about what immigrants bring to rural communities as an antidote when the U.S. government kept the children of asylum seekers in cages," Gammack reports. Cullen's column "was a man-bites-dog moment. It contradicted the myth that all who live in predominantly white rural America hate people who don't look like them. Levison was captivated. And so are those who watch 'Storm Lake'."

The documentary "is a vital celebration of the role of community-based news gathering at a time when media revenues are way down and the credibility of the press has taken a hammering across much of the country," David Rooney writes for The Hollywood Reporter. "Chronicling roughly two years in the life of The Storm Lake Times, which has served the rural Iowan farm town for 30 years, the film is an engrossing account of a family business run with integrity and passion. It also doubles as restorative proof that, even in these divided times, respectful co-existence can still outweigh opposing political views."

The film is showing at the Woods Hole Film Festival Saturday, July 31, and streaming is available at 8 a.m. ET that day. (It’s live at 8:30 p.m.) Regular tickets are $14; a house hold ticket is $20. Click here for more information.