One of the first regionally produced American independent features to receive broad exposure and critical acclaim, Northern Lights is a saga of grassroots politics set during early years of the First World War in the vast farmlands of North Dakota. Told in flashback, the film follows a young Scandanavian farmer who is radicalized by the crushing conditions of an unusually harsh winter and the even more devastating consequences of unregulated banking practices. He joins up as an organizer for the emerging Nonpartisan League, which becomes an effective political force for change. Fluidly intermixing actors with a cast of North Dakota nonprofessionals and filming in a quasi-vérité style, Hanson and Nilsson achieved a unique form of American neorealism that earned them the Caméra d’Or at Cannes and accolades by critics such as Roger Ebert, who lauded them for accomplishing “a small miracle on a smaller budget.”