A small, blue-collar city struggles with the opioid crisis and with welcoming new refugees in an epic identity crisis that threatens to tear them apart.

As her blue-collar city struggles to emerge from the opioid epidemic and gets caught up in battles over change, identity, and self-mythology, FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND closely follows the story of Stacie Griffin – a remarkable and resilient woman who lives in the toughest neighborhood of the heroin-battered town of Rutland, Vermont. After 38 years of steady hardship and near invisibility in a town that is overwhelmingly white and deeply stratified by class, Stacie yearns to improve her own situation and those of her neighbors – including three Syrian families who arrive in her town just before the federal government bans refugee resettlement. With a verité approach and a microcosmic lens, FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND traces almost three years in the life of Stacie, the town’s firebrand mayor Chris Louras, and an ensemble cast of supporting characters representing a cross-section of the town’s clashing ideological and cultural subgroups.