Storm Lake

torm Lake is an elegiac heartland portrait, often melancholy in its reflections on compromises to the traditional fabric of local life, and yet colored by the hope of endurance, both for the newspaper and the community it represents.

Storm Lake celebrates the professionalism of a newspaper family — the elders worked at newspapers elsewhere before starting this one — who put out a clean, polished news product week after week, embracing some changes and dodging others.

While the documentary doesn’t have headlines or columns, it does have gorgeous establishing shots, great music, and fantastic narration, all of which blend together, allowing Beth Levison and Jerry Risius to tell the true tale of Storm Lake, Iowa.