Anne Goetze and Nathan Collie have been documenting the middle Tennessee landscape for many years through photographs and video. Now they have collaborated with editor and videographer Ken Tucker to create a documentary, The Living Land, to bring awareness, a spirit of conservation, and beauty into our lives through nature, music and poetry.

 

Nathan Collie, a bird and wildlife photographer and videographer who is dedicated to conservation is the author of the recently published illustrated book, Moments with Birds, which features photos of birds he has photographed in Tennessee. Ken Tucker is an Emmy award-winning producer, editor, and videographer as well as a conservationist, who has produced episodes of the PBS outdoors show Tennessee’s Wild Side. He has been recognized by the Tennessee Wildlife Federation as Conservations Communicator of the Year. Anne Goetze is an award-winning artist and photographer, dedicated to land conservation with work in the collections of The Booth Museum, Tennessee State Museum, Vanderbilt Children’s, Psychiatric and Cancer Centers, and private international collections.

In the documentary, the rich sights and sounds of nature in middle Tennessee are traced through all four seasons, accompanied with narrated poetry and music. Native American singer/songwriter Bill Miller also contributes music and reads from the Native American Book of Wisdom. This documentary is intended to encourage and inspire us to become more active in protecting and conserving the resources of middle Tennessee —and the earth itself— for future generations, as well as to expand access to the arts as a pathway to well-being.

Many local Williamson County residents and organizations contributed to the documentary including the narratives of Elizabeth and Julie Tucker, Paul Kingsbury, Patti Freeman and Native American Bill Miller. The music was provided by Even Stevens and Williamson County creatives Tony Joe White, Al Perkins and Bill Miller. Also included are the Center for Sustainable Stewardship, the Williamson County Heritage Foundation, interviews with Harpeth Conservancy’s Dorie Bolze, TennGreen’s Alice Hudson Pell, and The Nature Conservancy’s Bill and Tracy Frist. And representing our future generations, nature lover Alex Beasley.

 

“What is so great about this documentary film is the collaboration of talents coming together for a shared mission” says filmmaker and artist Anne Goetze. “Williamson County, middle Tennessee, and all of Tennessee, are under a huge influx of over-development right now. The resources will not be able to sustain it, so now we are at a critical crossroad for smart growth and stewardship of the land.”