Celebrating Vermont Filmakers at Billings Farm

WOODSTOCK, VERMONT... Billings Farm & Museum is excited to kick off the 16th season of the Woodstock Vermont Film Series Saturday, December 6 and Sunday, December 7 at 3:00PM with a special opening weekend dedicated to Vermont filmmakers. This year’s launch features a double screening of La Liga and Stories to Save Us: The Saltmarsh Sparrow, two powerful short films that highlight the artistry, compassion, and vision of local storytellers.   

Saturday’s screening will be followed by an in-depth Q&A with filmmakers MacPherson Christopher of La Liga and Melanie Finn of The Saltmarsh Sparrow, moderated by award-winning filmmaker and film series curator Jay Craven.

La Liga follows Vermont’s immigrant dairy workers who, in the face of isolation and hardship, formed a pickup soccer league to find community and hope. The film shines a light on the people keeping Vermont’s dairy farms alive, those working long hours for minimum wage while facing persecution, harassment, and constant pressure from immigration enforcement. At its core, La Liga is a story of resilience and belonging, of individuals who came to Vermont with little more than a dream, finding a sense of home in a new land and using a shared national pastime to build a better future. La Liga is in Spanish with English subtitles.  

In Stories to Save Us: The Saltmarsh Sparrow, Emmy-nominated cinematographer Matt Aeberhard and award-winning writer Melanie Finn follow the struggle of a small coastal bird whose nesting cycles are increasingly disrupted by rising tides and vanishing habitat, pushing the species toward extinction.  

 “I am a spokesperson for the natural world, and our planetary life-support system,” said Aeberhard. “I retain hope that an imaginative renaissance in wildlife film may help to affect a Copernican shift in the way that we see animals and our place in the world.” 

Aeberhard’s upcoming feature film, Birds of America, carries an ambitious conservation goal: to transform how we see and engage with the natural world amid climate change and habitat loss. Through the companion series, Stories to Save Us, Aeberhard and Finn take viewers behind the scenes to explore both the beauty of their subjects and the urgency of preserving them. 

The Woodstock Vermont Film Series is dedicated to sharing place-based stories of people near and far, engaging our audiences, and inspiring conversations that increase connections with each other and our world. Films will be screened on select Saturdays and Sundays at 3:00 PM in the Billings Farm & Museum Visitor Center Theater from December 6 through March 22, 2026. Tickets for all regular screenings are $15 per person and $12 for Billings Farm & Museum members.      

The Woodstock Vermont Film Series is curated and directed by award-winning filmmaker Jay Craven and produced by Billings Farm & Museum with generous community support from lead sponsors Mascoma Bank and the Woodstock Inn & Resort. Billingsfarm.org/filmseries.