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I don’t generally feel very comfortable in environments where efficiency is appreciated to the detriment of thoughtfulness… But once we were on the path that led to the farm–I was taking my daughter on a nursery school outing and I wanted to record the experience on camera–I realized that it was precisely there that I had to be. I felt I needed that opportunity… spending an hour contemplating a snail crawling along a leaf, the sort of thing I believe it’s important to devote time to but which the pace of life doesn’t let us nowadays. I might also add that I saw a film in Niels from the word go.

I’d heard his produce was prime-quality but knew nothing about the place and how it was farmed. There was no soy-based feed, no pesticides, no industrial production. The animals are out at pasture all year long, even when the ground is covered in thick snow. Stockholm’s cattle are so agile, they’re more like deer! We use more resources than we’ve got, our planetary storehouse is now empty! Niels’s story is in stark contrast with the rest of society and he’s intransigent with himself: if he senses that his cattle need to be milked in the middle of the night, he’ll do it. Niels is an organism on the farm that interacts with all the other elements, capable of entering perfectly into the rhythm of the animals’ lives. It was there that I saw a real alternative, someone actually doing something instead of just talking about it. We live in an age in which the vision of the industrial and capitalist world is collapsing miserably. Which is why I think that the example of this man and his wife Rita is very positive, even if theirs is an extremely simple life. I can’t figure out who anyone can see this experience as a “passing trend” as opposed to a solution.