Four Midwestern farm families persevere through climate change, industrialization, and mental health crises.

Independent Lens: Greener Pastures premieres Monday, March 25 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

There is a mental health crisis happening for many American farmers. A combination of climate change, the pandemic, and the domination of megafarms have contributed to increasing economic uncertainty and isolation. Following four family farms in the Midwest over several years, the documentary Greener Pastures is a story of perseverance and survival within the farming industry in the heartland.

Caption: Dairy farmer Jay Simeral saws wood at the backdrop of his Adena, Ohio farm as one of his mini blue heelers patiently waits for him to finish. • Credit: Sam Mirpoorian

For nearly four decades, John Coykendall’s passion has been preserving farm heritage – the seeds and stories – of a small, farming culture in Southeastern Louisiana and this work.

Deeply Rooted: John Coykendall’s Journey to Save Our Seeds and Stories airs Monday, March 25 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

John Coykendall is a renowned heirloom seed saver, a classically trained artist, and Master Gardener at Blackberry Farm, one of America’s top resorts. Since 1973, he has made an annual pilgrimage to Louisiana, where he has recorded the oral histories, growing techniques, recipes and folktales of Louisiana farmers and backyard gardeners in more than 80 beautifully illustrated journals. He has saved and safeguarded rare varieties of the crops they once grew, and handed them back to the communities where they came from. “Seeds carry with them more than the potential to sustain people as food, they are living history of the people who cared and tended to them and cultivated them and passed them down. I feel 100-percent total obligation, I am the caretaker,” believes Coykendall. “This is what we’re working to save, this history, the heritage, the way of life, the way of farming, way of cuisine, everything to do needs to be preserved while it’s still here to be preserved.”

A Tennessee native, 73-year-old Coykendall is a true Renaissance man and a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine and locally sourced, organic and heirloom food. He is a classically trained artist, who studied at the Ringling College of Art and Design and studied and worked as an instructor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and he is well-known for his sketches of the pastoral landscape in which he works.

For nearly 20 years, he has been the Master Gardener at one of America’s most celebrated destination resorts, Blackberry Farm, in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The 4,200 acre resort, working farm and culinary mecca has been heralded by the world’s most prestigious magazines, including Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit, Forbes, Vogue, Town & Country, Southern Living, and Garden & Gun among many others.  At Blackberry Farm, John cultivates the property’s seven acres of farmland that supply the resort’s award winning restaurants with fresh from the ground, heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Caption: John Coykendall • Credit: Sarah Weldon

Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s latest film follows the Troisgros family and their restaurants, Troisgros, Le Central, and Colline de Colombia, located in three neighboring locations in central France.

Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros premieres Friday, March 22 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Much of the film takes place near Roanne at Troisgros, where the present chef, César Troisgros, is the fourth generation of the family to be in charge. Founded 93 years ago, the restaurant has maintained three Michelin stars for 55 years. The film explores the day-to-day operations of this restaurant, from purchasing fresh vegetables at the market, visits to a cheese processing plant, a vineyard, a cattle ranch working on best farming practices, and an organic farmer whose farm, along with the garden of the restaurant, provides organic produce for the restaurants.

The film shows the great artistry, ingenuity, imagination, and hard work of the restaurant staff in creating, preparing, and presenting meals of the highest quality. Characterized by his signature long-form style, Wiseman juxtaposes the choreographed chaos of the kitchen with pastoral shots of the French countryside, resulting in a comprehensive portrait of the Troisgros dynasty. 

Throughout the film, the family’s interest in biodiversity is illustrated in their choice and preparation of their distinctive menu and their efforts to reduce food waste.  Additionally, the collaboration within the Troisgros family is evident as the father, Michel, ponders the transfer of leadership in the kitchen to his son and collaborates with his wife, who runs the hotel, and his other son who runs La Colline de Colombia. 

Photo: The restaurant staff • Credit: Zipporah Films

This two-part film by Ric Burns that chronicles the life, work and legacy of the great 14th century Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri, and his epic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy concludes tonight!

Dante: Inferno to Paradise concludes Tuesday March 19 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

The Divine Comedy is one of the greatest achievements in the history of Western Literature. The ambition of the film, which combines powerful dramatic reenactments, colorful interviews with renowned scholars, exquisite archival material and scenic filming, is to bring to life and make accessible, to the widest possible audience, the transformative power and beauty of this singular work of art.

Part Two, airing Tuesday, March 19 at 8 p.m. explores Dante’s experience in exile, and his completion of the last two parts of the Comedy, shortly before his death in Ravenna in 1321. Interweaving soaring scenes drawn from Purgatory and Paradise, the film goes on to explore the literary and cultural fate of Dante’s masterpiece from the time of his death down to today. Embracing the entire human community, committed to an egalitarian vision that placed women on an equal footing with men, and determined to communicate to the widest possible audience — Dante wrote his groundbreaking work in a form of vernacular Florentine that would become the basis of the Italian language itself. Centuries later, on these shores, the poem spoke to something deep in the emerging American psyche and soul: the Dante of exile, of freedom and free will. In praise to Dante for blazing a new path for language and literature, one that might serve as a model for American literature itself, Ralph Waldo Emerson declared: “Dante is Italian because at that moment he could most live as an Italian. At this moment, he would be born American.”

Part One aired Monday, March 18 at 8 p.m., explores the historical background of medieval Florence and recounts the dramatic details of Dante’s childhood, education and early literary and political career. Culminating in his exile in 1302 and with his decision to begin “The Divine Comedy” in 1306, the story plunges into Dante’s work. “The Divine Comedy,” begins in the underworld with the Roman poet, Virgil, guides Dante and they meet a vast cohort of historical and mythological figures before arriving at the very bottom of hell and encountering Lucifer himself. Dante wrote at a moment not unlike our own of tremendous upheaval, crisis, doubt and change – as the feudal world crumbled and a new modern one loomed into view – a world beset from without and within by greed, corruption, factionalism and violence, and in which every aspect of the moral, political, social, religious and economic order seemed to be breaking apart. Confronting such a world, Dante chose not to despair but “to portray” what he saw, as scholar Lino Pertile observes, “and to show there is another way.” Seeking to save himself and to save the world, he created a poem that embraced every aspect of the learning, history and art of his time – all the while addressing questions relevant to this day. Is there free will? How can we live a moral life? How should we treat each other?

Photo: Dante Alighieri statue in Santa Croce square in Florence, Italy • Credit: Shutterstock Zvonimir Atletic

Enjoy a front row seat to this 2014 high-energy performance by the legendary Gregg Allman and his eight-piece solo band!

Gregg Allman Live: Back to Macon, GA airs Friday, March 8 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

The broadcast program features nine tracks and the PBS Passport version features an additional seven songs, including selections from the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) catalog, tunes from Allman’s solo albums and several dynamic cover songs. Hits performed include “I’m No Angel,” “Melissa” and “Midnight Rider.”

Allman summarized the experience of recording live in Macon thusly: “Macon is a wonderful town with wonderful people, and I still have some dear, dear friends there. Macon holds a special place in my heart; it comes with a lot of different memories, but the good ones are all that matter to me now. I’m so proud of this album; boy, we were smokin’ that night.”

Allman is one of the most acclaimed and beloved icons in rock and roll history. As a founding member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band and in his own storied solo career, Allman was a gifted natural interpreter of the blues, his soulful and distinctive voice one of the defining sounds in the history of American music.

 At the 54thAnnual Grammy Awards in 2012, the Allman Brothers Band was honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, in part a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the group’s seminal album Eat a Peach. Allman himself, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, was also nominated for Best Blues Album for his acclaimed first solo record in 13 years, Low Country Blues. Allman died due to complications from liver cancer at his home in Savannah, Ga., on May 17, 2017. He played his last show October 29, 2016 at his own Laidback Festival in Atlanta.

Photo: Gregg Allman • Credit: Provided by American Public Television

Celebrate the legendary performers and their decades-long careers and partnership.

Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name airs Wednesday, March 6 9:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Celebrate the legendary performers in a look back at their decades-long careers and ongoing songwriting partnership in this documentary from filmmaker Frank Marshall. Featuring performances of King’s classics, including “It’s Too Late,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” and “So Far Away” and Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James,” “Fire and Rain,” “Shower the People,” and many more.

Photo: James Taylor & Carole King • Credit: Courtesy of Kennedy/ Marshall

Discover how a documentary series became a media sensation 50 years ago and birthed a new television genre.

An American Family at 50 premieres Monday, March 4, 2024 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Fifty years ago, PBS broadcast An American Family, a 12-week documentary series unlike any program that had been seen on broadcast television. Chronicling seven months in the lives of the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California, it became a catalyst for a national conversation about American culture, society, and family. Ten million viewers a week watched, making the series a watercooler conversation across the nation.  No one involved with the production anticipated the level of attention and commentary — both supportive and critical — that the series and the Loud family would receive. Newsweek Magazine put the series on its cover, TV appearances included “The Dick Cavett Show,” and even anthropologist Margaret Mead called it “as new and significant as the invention of drama or the novel. An American Family at 50, premiering Monday, March 4, 2024 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV, revisits the original series and explores its significance.

Photo: The Loud Family • Credit: The WNET Group