A documentary following the first year of business for an innovative greenhouse in Jackson is one of ten finalists in a nationwide film competition.
The film, called “Hearts of Glass,” details the challenges of the Vertical Harvest greenhouse through its first year of “vertical farming,” a process that grows produce by stacking it on top of each other instead of side by side. Vertical Harvest also hires disabled people in the community to help grow the produce.
The winner of the documentary competition, sponsored by the crowd-funding website Seed & Spark, will receive $20,000 for production costs, $5,000 for data storage, and will have their film distributed digitally to millions of homes.
Jennifer Tennican, the documentary’s director, said the greenhouse’s story inspired her.
“It’s taking place in this small town in Wyoming, this very innovative, agricultural and social experiment. It’s a really amazing opportunity to spread that to a broad audience,” she said.
Tennican said close to $28,000 was raised on the project’s Seed & Spark fundraising page to cover production costs. She said the biggest donation came from the Wyoming Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, which donated $10,000.