Director Diego Ongaro moved from Paris to Brooklyn, New York to Sandisfield, Massachusetts, where he befriended Bob Tarasuk,[2] a farmer and logger.

[4] The feature-length Bob and the Trees debuted at the noncompetitive Next section of the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2015,[1] where it was met with warm critical reception.

The Hollywood Reporter's Justin Lowe stated that the film "mines a rich vein of humanism shot through with characteristically dry New England humor", with Ongaro's "unsentimental empathy" a tone "too often missing from outsider perspectives".

[5] In a review for Indiewire, Katie Walsh described Tarasuk as "wonderfully natural, open, and unstudied", though also wrote that the "story of the making of Bob and the Trees is probably the most interesting thing about the film itself", and that it "could stand to lose about 10 minutes in [an] edit".

[6] Ben Kenigsberg of Variety drew comparison between the film's visuals and woodland work by Kelly Reichardt, and praised Tarasuk's "introverted performance".