The Flatirons Food Film Festival will host “An Evening with Dr. Temple Grandin” at the Longmont Museum on Monday, June 30, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event will feature a screening of An Open Door, a documentary produced by the CSU College of Agricultural Sciences about Grandin’s groundbreaking work in humane livestock handling and autism advocacy, followed by an in-person discussion with Grandin herself. The event is co-presented by Slow Food Boulder County and SOIL Boulder.
A professor of animal science at Colorado State University, Dr. Temple Grandin is known for her work in livestock handling and autism awareness. Her designs for animal handling systems have been adopted in various parts of the industry to help reduce stress and injury in animals. She is also an author and speaker who has written about different ways of thinking, particularly in her book Visual Thinking, which explores how some people process information through images, patterns, and abstractions, encouraging greater recognition of diverse cognitive styles.
An Open Door was produced by John Festervand, director of development at Colorado State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and a longtime friend of Grandin.“She lives just a few blocks from me,” he said. “When COVID hit, I started bringing her food, asking questions, hearing her stories.” Their conversations led to a deeper understanding of her book Visual Thinking and the larger mission behind her work.
“As a visual thinker on the autism spectrum, Temple notices things others don’t… shadows, shiny reflections, flapping chains… that scare animals and lead to rougher handling,” Festervand said. “That attention to detail changed the entire livestock industry.”
The documentary was also a hands-on learning opportunity for CSU students. Festervand and his team hired 12 students who spent more than 1,500 hours editing and producing the film over nine months. “Three are now working full-time in the film industry,” he said. “Two just earned their master’s degrees. The legacy this has created is fantastic.”
“To me, this was our love letter to Temple,” Festervand said. “We wanted to tell her story in a way that hadn’t been done before.” While the Emmy-winning 2010 HBO biopic Temple Grandin captured her early life up to age 27, An Open Door picks up where that story left off. It offers a more personal, behind-the-scenes view of her enduring influence. The film traces the ripple effects of her work through the voices of those who knew her best: feedlot managers, meatpacking workers, former professors, and childhood mentors who helped shape her groundbreaking career and were shaped by it in return.
Jodie Pompa, board chair of Slow Food Boulder County, sees Grandin’s legacy as reflecting the organization’s core values around humane and respectful food systems. “She really changed the paradigm of how animals can be treated respectfully, even at scale,” Pompa said. “Slow Food Boulder shares this commitment to ethical, mindful ranching — Grandin’s work shows how large-scale operations can still prioritize animal welfare.”
Pompa also sees Grandin’s legacy as one that transcends agriculture. “She’s inspired so many people, especially those who are neurodivergent, to see new possibilities for themselves.” And, she hopes the film resonates with families. “I want kids to sit with their parents and say, ‘Wow. she made a difference, even when being neurodivergent wasn’t understood or accepted.’ She helped bridge that gap.”
A central theme in An Open Door is Grandin’s call to better recognize and support neurodiverse thinkers, especially visual learners like herself. Reflecting on her decades working in livestock and construction, she spoke about colleagues who were on the autism spectrum and brought remarkable creativity and technical skill to their work. “Some of them had 20 patents,” she said. “But those kinds of hands-on talents aren’t being nurtured the way they used to be. Too often, those kids are just getting shunted aside.”
Grounded in her own struggles with abstract subjects like algebra, Grandin has long criticized education systems that sideline visual thinkers. “I was terrible at math,” she said. “I never took calculus.” But once she began working with livestock, her strengths became clear. “We’re screening out visual thinkers with all these math requirements,” she added. “Why does a veterinarian need calculus? They need practical math and mechanical aptitude. We’re not recognizing people who think in pictures.”
Asked what she would do to improve education, Grandin didn’t hesitate. “I’d put all the hands-on classes back in.” She believes the removal of shop, art, cooking, and mechanical classes has stifled students’ potential. “A lot of kids today are growing up, and they’ve never used a tool. I think that’s just terrible. You’ve gotta get exposed to things to get interested.”
That belief extends to how young people find their path. “Try lots of different things,” she advised. “Get involved in internships that are career-relevant. Help professors out with their research. Sometimes you’re just helping collect data, but that can lead to something that turns into a career.”
The documentary’s title reflects Grandin’s belief in nurturing opportunity. “There’s a lot of door symbolism in the film,” she said. “There are doors to opportunity everywhere. People just don’t see them.”
At its heart, An Open Door is a call to shift how we see ability, not through the lens of limitations, but through potential. “The label shouldn’t come first,” Grandin said. “I want people to see what individuals with autism can do, not what they can’t.”
Tickets for “An Evening with Dr. Temple Grandin” at the Longmont Museum are $22 and can be purchased online. Proceeds from the event, along with individual and corporate donations, will support the Temple Grandin Equine Center.
