Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

NEW YORK — As the dairy industry continues to struggle, farmer mental health is becoming an increasing concern, one that Samuel Goldberg, producer of the fictional 6-episode limited series “Perfect Sundays,” aims to tackle head-on.

Goldberg, along with actor Jim Parrack, will be featured in a Tanbark Talk at World Dairy Expo, Sept. 29, where they will talk about the production of the series and what they have learned talking to farmers and mental health experts around the country.

“We wanted to help tell the story of modern agriculture in an authentic way,” said Goldberg, who operates Samuel Goldberg Entertainment, based in New York City.

Goldberg’s first agricultural undertaking, which also starred Parrack, was called “SILO,” a fictional scripted drama centered around a grain bin entrapment.

Producing “SILO” was Goldberg’s first brush with the agricultural community.

“I grew up in New York City and knew nothing about agriculture before being introduced to the idea of grain entrapment,” Goldberg said. “Working on that, I spent a lot of time in farm country, traveling through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. I fell in love with the farmers I met and wanted to continue to tell their stories.”

To produce both pieces, Goldberg teamed up with his wife, Rupa Mehta, and writer Jason Williamson, a rural North Carolina native and creative writing professor at New York University.

Goldberg said the goal was to create realistic combinations of the many stories they heard through their travels, to create a fictional version for their screenplay.

Striving to authentically tell the story, Goldberg chose to film “Perfect Sundays” on a working family dairy farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The story was born of the requests of farmers they met during the production of “SILO” asking them to delve into the strains of running a small family farm and the growing mental health concerns in the farming community.

To create the realistic story they desired, Goldberg and Williamson set out on a journey to learn about the complexities of small farms and the economics surrounding them.

“We spent a lot of time on dairy farms and in barns, getting to know the cows, the process and the farmers,” Goldberg said. “We did our due diligence, talking to more than 75 dairy farmers, ice cream entrepreneurs and professors; we worked with a mental health advisor, Ted Matthews, the director of Rural Minnesota Mental Health Support.

The “Perfect Sundays” story opens on the second anniversary of the death of Ed Weeks, a farmer who died by suicide. The family and the farm are struggling in the wake of Ed’s death, Goldberg said.

That day, Marla becomes determined to pull her family back from the precipice they are dangling off.

Before Ed’s death, the family reveled in a tradition of making ice cream from their own milk each Sunday after church, concocting ice cream desserts, referring to the day as a perfect Sunday.

“Marla realizes her son, who has taken over the 35-cow dairy farm, might be heading down the same path as his father,” Goldberg said. “Marla decides the only way to ease the financial burden of the farm is to turn that family tradition into a retail ice cream business.”

“Perfect Sundays” is about the Weeks family’s journey back from the edge of financial collapse and emotional paralysis, Goldberg said.

“The story is familiar to anyone who recognizes that internal battle of depression and the devastating effects it has on a family,” Goldberg said.

Growing up near his grandparents’ farm in rural North Carolina, Goldberg said Williamson’s writing shows great compassion and empathy for farmers.

“We both had a shared disappointment in how rural America is often conveyed in media, especially scripted content,” Goldberg said. “It’s either glorified or simplified or denigrated. There aren’t enough nuanced, complex narratives around agriculture or rural America. We’re striving to tell those stories.”

That conveyance feeds the lack of appreciation Americans have for the people growing their food, Goldberg said. The disconnect is not solely an urban issue, but also a growing gap in rural communities.

“We spoke to a farmer who told us when he was growing up, when there was a wedding, they would have the ceremony, then break so people could go home and milk cows, and then come back for the party,” Goldberg said. “Over the last 25 years, he said there are so few farmers that just doesn’t happen anymore. So those people in the dairy community are struggling to attend these events, creating a sense of social isolation.”

Goldberg hopes “Perfect Sundays” can serve as a vehicle to open conversations about the mental welfare of the agricultural community.

“Americans don’t totally appreciate their farmers,” Goldberg said. “So often I hear surprise when a farmer takes their own life, and others in the community will remark that he stopped coming to church months before, or he stopped doing something else, and they didn’t know what was going on. Sometimes you just have to go knock on the door and ask what’s happening. We have to get comfortable with being a little uncomfortable when some of these signs of social isolation start.”

Cultivating that sense of community is one of Goldberg’s goals with “Perfect Sundays.”

“We want to make a show so good and authentic that it creates something people can talk about within their communities,” Goldberg said. “We hope that maybe it helps a farmer talk about some issues that are otherwise challenging. If they’re talking about a television show and not themselves, maybe it’s an easier conversation.”