Beyond the Shadows

Not that long ago Appalachia, steeped in mystery, magic and lore, was home to a type of lifestyle and practice that many modern folks today can hardly believe ever existed. As late as 1969, the same year man first walked on the moon, deep in the hills and hollers of West Virginia you'd think time had stood still. Grannies made medicines and remedies from herbs they gathered in the woods and grandpas interpreted dreams, and worked "by the signs" in much the same way they did 150 years before. They engaged in elaborate and sometimes bizarre rituals from their scattered homesteads and hand hewn cabins across the misty topped mountains. In a very real sense, they WERE the mountain. It provided their food, their medicine, their livelihood and their home.

It wasn't until Billy left home for college that he discovered just how strange and uncommon his family's traditional mountain way of life was. A short while later, back at home, his family was forced off their land, the ancestral property seized via eminent domain and Grandpa Bill died, Granny Thena said "from a broken heart" ... it was then that Billy, my father, began having haunting dreams. In them Grandpa Bill told Billy he had left something for him, out on the mountain, buried in the ground...

Inspired by first-person accounts, this multi-disciplinary collaboration utilizes one of the oldest forms of storytelling in the world: shadow puppetry, along with traditional 16mm capture in extreme low light conditions, experimental film chemistry and developing techniques and modern digital editing, matched with an original score by a native West Virginian folk musician to produce a short like no other. From concept to paper cut-out, to celluloid, to debut screening in just five days. Take a journey, and see if you can peer: Beyond the Shadows.