Burlington filmmaker Travis Van Alstyne has been named winner of the Vermont Historical Society's 2025 Richard O. Hathaway Award for his animated short film "Love of the Land."
The work is based on the story of Ascutney farmer Romaine Tenney, who died by suicide in the early-morning hours of Sept. 12, 1964, after his farm was seized by eminent domain to make way for the construction of Interstate 91. Van Alstyne wrote, directed and animated the film, which features narration and voice-over by George Woodard, and was supported in part by Vermont Public’s Made Here fund.
“This profoundly moving film humanizes an event often seen as a footnote to the mid-20th-century transformation of Vermont," said historical society Executive Director Stephen Perkins. "In place of the former interpretation of the event as public protest, Travis Van Alstyne’s work instead shows Tenney’s actions as a requiem to a lost way of life.”