WCC Film Series: Sweetgrass

This summer, the Wachholz College Center is excited to launch the WCC FILM SERIES, an ongoing series featuring a variety of films and film themes throughout each season. Each film will feature a short talk-back to begin the evening, providing the audience with important information and interesting facts about the film(s) they are about to view.

The theme for the summer of 2025 is MADE IN MONTANA - featuring a selection of cinema highlighting several lesser-known movies that were shot under the Big Sky! While production crews often utilize Montana's stunning backgrounds to set the scene before retreating to the comfort of a studio lot, the seven feature films of this summer were created almost entirely in the Treasure State. Therefore, each one taps into the same culture and landscapes we all share and relates it back to us in new and surprising ways. We hope that by curating a lineup of Montana-centric cinema specifically for the community, audiences might find something new and surprising about our home state in each one of these films.

FEATURED FILM:
Title: Sweetgrass
Year: 2009
Director: Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Starring: Hundreds of Sheep
Rated:  NR
Run Time: 1hr 41mins

Sweetgrass, directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, is a poignant, observational documentary chronicling the last traditional sheep drive in Montana. The film closely follows a single family of Norwegian-American shepherds as they guide around 3,000 sheep into the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains for summer grazing. Filmed over several years beginning in 2001, the movie is pared-back and immersive: devoid of narration, musical score, or overt commentary, it relies instead on long, unbroken takes that capture the rhythm, labor, and unpredictability of this disappearing way of life . The result is a meditation on the interplay between humans, animals, and the rugged landscape—unfiltered, intimate, and at times brutally realistic, such as in moments of lambing, shearing, or fending off predators.

Montana isn’t just the film's setting; it’s the heartbeat of Sweetgrass. The title nods to Sweet Grass County, and the footage was captured near Big Timber and within the vast Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, showcasing the shifting seasons, high-altitude passes, and sweeping vistas that define the region. This was truly the last of its kind—the outlawed mass sheep drives ended around 2003–2005, marking the close of a century-old tradition. Critics and viewers alike have praised its unsentimental elegance and its role as both a documentary and a cultural eulogy for the American West. The film stands as a visual and sonic elegy to Montana’s pastoral heritage and to an era slipping quietly into history.