Tomorrow night—a mere 21 hours from now—we will be opening our hometown film festival, CIFF. This screening will mark the premiere of the film in Maine, the state where it was conceived and created, and where our characters (not to mention many of our friends and family) live and work.

This is our homecoming. It’s a big deal.

Before we spend all of tomorrow stressing out over preparations for the screening, though, it seems like time to pause and say thank you to all the people who’ve helped us get this far.

We are grateful on a daily basis for the amazing team that helped us make this film. This means you, Scott, Dallas, Mary, Lindsay, Joe, Colin, and many more.

We are grateful for the love and support of our families.

We owe a huge debt to the funders and festivals who’ve shown us support throughout this process. That means you, LEF Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Sundance Institute, Silverdocs, Thom Powers, and Ben Fowlie. Not to mention the family and friends that have thrown their hard-earned money our way to help us tell this story. Thank you.

We’re also hugely grateful to the organizations who’ve agreed to sponsor our Maine tour, which will enable us to show this film to communities all across the state of Maine: Bangor Savings Bank, Maine Farm Bureau, Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association, Maine Farmland Trust, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Sierra Club Maine.

Last but not least, we owe a huge debt to the farmers and families of Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company. The simple truth of making a documentary—particularly a verité film—is that it is a collaboration; without the trust and honesty of one’s subjects, it’s impossible to make a film like this. The people we met on this journey have inspired us with their hard work and know-how. Their perseverance in the face of difficulty, though, has been the greatest inspiration of all.

To befriend and follow a group of people who wouldn’t quit on a good idea simply because it wasn’t working yet was an inspiring (and frustrating, terrifying, exasperating, and exhausting) experience.

The biggest problems we all face are not easily fixed. They require not brilliant, bold, one-stroke solutions, but a painstaking, imperfect process of gradual improvement. That’s not an easy thing to do. It requires patience, a tolerance for adversity, and a willingness to adapt. Most of all, it takes hard work. In that way, not to mention many others, we’ve found the farmers of MOO Milk to be a model for the future. It’s been an honor to know them, and it is a thrill to tell their story to a Maine audience for the first time.