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In the opening minutes of , Jason Goldman’s debut , the director captures sunrise on a Texas farm where various animals nap, munch, or amble on verdant, windswept pastures. Inside the farmhouse’s kitchen, a middle-aged woman in a well-worn robe and silvery, tousled hair repeats the mantras of a guided-meditation recording: “If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

” As she whispers the words aloud, she feeds a turkey that has wandered into the house while a dog and cat look on curiously. “It’s a beautiful day, Sealey,” she proclaims to the turkey, which she carries outside into the matutinal light and places gingerly into a corral. Then she kneels to feed a reposing heifer before massaging the cow’s haunches.



“I’m so glad we’re here for you,” the woman whispers. If Goldman’s introductory scene feels storybook or Edenic, it is not poetic license. This unassuming place is anything but a traditional farm; in fact, it is a vegan animal sanctuary situated at the center of Texas’s sprawling ranching industry, otherwise known as cattle country.

Owners Renee King-Sonnen and Tommy Sonnen are themselves former cattle ranchers turned vegan activists who, a decade ago, founded as an oasis for livestock that would have otherwise gone to slaughter. For Sonnen, ranching was a profession that went back generations in his family. It’s a proud tradition as ever-present in rural Texas as John Deere caps, For.

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