Documentary on Montague Farm commune makes homecoming with Shea Theater screening

“Far Out: Life On & After the Commune” director and co-producer Charles Light, pictured in August at the location of the Packer Corners commune just over the Leyden line in Guilford, Vermont. The film will be screened at the Shea Theater Arts Center on Friday.

“Far Out: Life On & After the Commune” director and co-producer Charles Light, pictured in August at the location of the Packer Corners commune just over the Leyden line in Guilford, Vermont. The film will be screened at the Shea Theater Arts Center on Friday. STAFF FILE PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN

Staff Writer

Published: 12-19-2024 1:36 PM

TURNERS FALLS — The documentary “Far Out: Life On & After the Commune,” co-produced by Charles Light of Guilford, Vermont, and Dan Keller of Wendell, will experience a Montague homecoming on Friday with a screening at the Shea Theater Arts Center.

The film will start at 7:30 p.m. The screening will include a discussion with Light, along with Sam Lovejoy, a member of the Montague Farm commune and anti-nuclear activist, and Verandah Porche, a poet and member of the Packer Corners commune in Guilford, Vermont.

“Far Out: Life On & After the Commune” had a successful first showing at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro, Vermont, in September and October, with total ticket sales exceeding 2,000, according to Light. The film also won “Best New England Feature” at the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival in September and was screened locally in Greenfield and in other communities in Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire.

After these successful screenings, the film is now coming to Montague for the first time, which holds particular significance given that much of the story of the communes takes place in the Chestnut Hill part of town.

“It has a great meaning to me,” Light said about the documentary being shown at the Shea Theater. For Light, the importance is two-fold as he was part of the effort to raise money to open the Turners Falls theater, and he feels it is important to have this story shown at its hometown venue.

“It’s wonderful to have it shown in the hometown, and for people to be informed about the history,” Light said, “because it vanishes, even though it is sort of a perennial story. It’s 50 years, it’s a long time and it’s an important story. It’s a historical story for the town, and for the larger region and country, especially in these times.”

The 85-minute film tells the story of a left-wing faction fight in the summer of 1968, when a group of radical journalists from Liberation News Service (LNS) left New York City for life in the country. They founded two communes, with one at Packer Corners in Guilford, Vermont, and the other on 60 acres in Montague.

When the rural winter set in and the ink in their printing press froze in the barn, thus dashing their hopes of continuing the news service, commune members turned their attention to trying to farm the land, with help from neighbors. These commune members helped influence the “back-to-the-land” farming movement, and members of the Montague commune became involved in the struggle to keep a twin nuclear power plant from being built close by at the Montague Plains.

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Lovejoy was a pivotal part of the push against the proposed Montague power plant in 1973, which eventually sparked a national “No Nukes” movement that extended to the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire. Lovejoy toppled a 500-foot weather tower on the planned site of the Montague power plant, and from there, after years of anti-nuclear activism by Lovejoy and other commune members, they teamed up with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash and other committed musicians to produce five nights of sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden and a 250,000-person rally in New York City in 1979.

Throughout these years, Light recalls taking video footage and conducting interviews to tell the story of the communes, but other films about anti-nuclear activism and the Vietnam War arose, putting this film off. That was until 2023, when Light decided to finally digitize and cut the footage together to tell the story, using a mix of storytelling methods and footage formats.

With five decades of history and culture behind this film, Light said the story remains relevant today given the national divide in politics, and how the culture of New England shifted to be more left-leaning since the 1960s. Lovejoy likewise mentioned this shift in culture, and how members of the commune helped spearhead that movement.

“We were the beginning of a big intellectual shift, first across the Pioneer Valley, then second across the United States,” Lovejoy said.

To get tickets for “Far Out: Life On & After the Commune,” visit the Shea Theater’s website at sheatheater.org/d/21098/Far-Out:-Life-On-&-After-the-Commune. Tickets are $20.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.