Rachel's Farm

Film director and actress Rachel Ward is not the first person you’d expect to join a farming revolution. In 1984, she starred in the iconic TV series The Thorn Birds, which glamorised the rugged Australian Outback. The whole world fell in love with it, and Rachel fell in love with her co-star, Bryan Brown. They married and moved to Australia and several years later they bought a farm where they raised cattle and their children, endured droughts, and flooding rains and finally the catastrophic bush fires of 2019-20, which threatened Rachel’s farm and devastated the country.

Witnessing the fury of those fires firsthand, in tandem with the birth of her first grandchild, forced Rachel to confront her own role, however small, in the precariousness of our environment. What impacts were overgrazing, pesticides and chemical fertilisers having on her farm? Worse still, how was her ecological ignorance impacting Australia’s rising temperatures, loss of topsoil and biodiversity?

RACHEL’S FARM is a triumphant film, featuring intimate interviews with Rachel, her family, and the people she has been inspired by on her transition from the world of entertainment to the world of farming. It gives a unique insight into her voyage from wilful ignorance about the ecological impacts of conventional agriculture to embracing a movement to restore the health of Australia’s farmland, food, and climate.