Independent filmmaker Kathy Swanson's journey to filmmaking was circuitous. After being the first in her family to graduate from college she took a job fighting fires and surveying for the Forest Service. While learning traditional weaving in Vermont from master Scottish weaver Norman Kennedy she met her partner Vince O’Connell with whom she founded and sold two successful manufacturing businesses. During the same period she raced bicycles and was invited to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. She attended film school in British Columbia and at Ohio University, which, along with her business skills and life experience, prepared her for writing, producing and directing her first feature film “Farmer of the Year” starring Barry Corbin. An understated study of aging and small town life inspired by her childhood on a hardscrabble farm, the character driven “Farmer of the Year” has won numerous audience and acting awards at film festivals including Sedona International Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival and Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, as well as the “Emerging Director Award” at the St. Louis International Film Festival. “Farmer of the Year” has screened at over a hundred venues from art theaters to multiplexes. She has made eleven films as writer, producer or director since 2009 and has two feature films in development with her production company Buffalo Ridge Productions.