'Range' rovers: Ranching moms hit the screen in Big Sky documentary

“Mother Range”, a Montana-brewed documentary premiering at the Big Sky Film Festival on Sunday, is a different cut on ranching life, which is often male-dominated and hostile to the uninitiated.

This screening spotlights Jaimie Stoltzfus from near Big Timber and Amber Smith from the Miles City area. Stoltzfus and Smith are both mothers and collaborative, profitable first-generation ranchers.

“(Audiences) want to see people running cattle around, yahooing and slinging ropes,” Smith said. “Women in their work, their voices and experiences in Western society and agriculture have gone unheralded, unnoticed and deemed not the part (audiences) want to see. Women have always been a huge part of these places, and now it’s coming forward.”

The production was deemed unique enough to secure a slot in the Montana Made Shorts section of the festival among 115 other films selected from 2,000 submissions. This year’s festival is expected to draw more than 25,000 audience members, per organizers.

“Sometimes we have to push pretty hard on what society deemed is our role, to expand it,” Smith said. The film debuts at the Wilma Theatre in Missoula on Sunday.

Stoltzfus hopes audience members not only get a glimpse into Montana agriculture, but what it is like to raise a family and be a mom living a rural lifestyle.

Stoltzfus, who first started ranching 17 years ago believes there are more opportunities for specifically women ranchers than there were when she started.

“People are becoming more concerned about where their meat comes from, about quality for their health and land health,” she said.

A crew formed to immortalize Stoltzfus and Smith’s partnership and lifestyle on the big screen in 2023.

Former Big Timber resident and documentary director Anthony Pavkovich originally connected with Stoltzfus as a neighbor and client after promoting her Cowgirl Meat Company.

“(Stoltzfus) was raising meat I was happy to eat,” said Pavkovich, whose personal passion is food along with camera work. “She was someone I wanted to explore with the camera more. So few of us get to see where our food comes from, how it’s made.”

Pavkovich later approached Livingston resident Zach Altman and Missoula’s Megan Torgerson to be co-producers. For Pavkovich, much of his film work included covering otherwise routine ranching conversations, chores and staying out of the way.

“Often trying to figure out how to stay a couple of steps ahead, how to frame (Stoltzfus and Smith) with the barn, the animals or mountains,” Pavkovich said. “It’s spending that time being patient and putting yourself in a position to get lucky.”

“The idea was around local meat in Montana,” Torgerson said. “We floated around the idea of Jaimie, and wanting to tell the story of some women ranchers in the state who were selling (meat) directly to the consumer.”

Altman devised profiling Smith before the crew learned both women were already collaborating. Smith raises cattle on her Antelope Springs ranch before they are sent to Stoltzfus’ P Bar Ranch.

“(Smith and Stoltzfus) are first-generation coming into the space of ranching,” Altman said. “They are down to do things differently because of necessity, because they are leasing their ranches from landowners.”

For Altman, the women’s story could only be told by a group with pre-existing community connections.

“It’s a story we saw in our community already that appealed to us,” Altman said. “That trust was already in place so (we) could be realistic.”

Altman hopes audience members leave the theater with a newfound awareness of one special segment of a largely industrialized food system, and the next-level creativity needed for ranching newcomers to make money.

“To think about how our food is raised and how thoughtful (Smith and Stoltzfus) are about that whole process is really important,” Altman said.

The film is slated to hit the festival circuit before becoming available online.

“It was really cool to see how these two first generation ranchers were unburdened by expectations of what ranching looked like for previous generations, and to explore alternative approaches within a male dominated industry,” Torgerson said. “They’re not only ranchers, entrepreneurs, and small-business owners, they are (mothers).”