The Prairie Trilogy

John Hanson and Rob Nilsson uncover a forgotten progressive history with this rousing trilogy of shorts on the life of North Dakota poet and socialist organizer Henry Martinson, that “sunniest of radicals” (Village Voice) who fought against economic exploitation from the 1900s to his death in 1981. Originally made between 1977 and 1980 as three separate films (Prairie Fire, Rebel Earth, and Survivor), this feature-length compilation shows that the “red” in our heartland’s “red states” once meant something else entirely—and could again. “A hoot, a thrill, rich with local color and indelible plains photography” (Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice).