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For the Love of Rutland

Sponsored Project

  • Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, Director
  • Producer: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor; Executive Producers Abigail E. Disney, Producer
  • Heather Rae, Producer
A white man with a beard holds an anti-refugee sign in a residential neighborhood.

About the Project

FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND (formerly THE GUT) explores a blue-collar New England town as a complex, partial microcosm of our current national and global reality. An attempt to bring new life to an economically struggling, overwhelmingly white community - through refugee resettlement - unleashes deep partisan rancor within the city’s small population of 15,000. After a lifetime of being invalidated for her poverty and addiction, Stacie emerges as an unexpected and resilient leader in a community divided by class, culture, and the toxic politics of today.

The film explores the forces racking many post-industrial and rural areas in the US and around the world – including income inequality, the opioid epidemic, falling populations, xenophobia, and the normalization of “white rage.” But FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND also uncovers passionate civic engagement, intense love of home, and the stories of ordinary people who become extraordinary in their desire to think and feel for themselves.