The Keeper

My Great Great Great Uncle Built Churches

2022

Bob Childress was the founder and builder of the famous "Rock Churches" of southwest Virginia, all established between 1919 and 1954. In 2022, Buford Jessup and his family set out to visit all seven of his great uncle's churches.

The World Made Straight

2015

In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.

Appalachian Dog

2025

Appalachia, 1946: a seamstress welcomes home her tailor husband to find they are not the team they were. Trying to stitch their old life back together, time and again it threatens to fall apart - with each of them pulling at the thread.

Ruby Road

A terminally ill former coal-truck and school-bus driver sets off in her yellow mini-bus through the Appalachian mountains on a final journey to reconcile with her past and her fractured family.

Found.

2020

"Found" is the story of an innocent teenage boy raised up in the Appalachian Mountains on a small old fashioned homestead devoid of modern conveniences and tucked away from the broader culture at large. Through a sudden tragedy, he suddenly finds himself cast out, alone and adrift into our high-speed, hi-tech modern world until he meets a troubled family who takes him into their home for better or for worse. What he learns about himself and what others around him discover about themselves brings new meaning to the phrase "testing your faith" (James 1:2-4).

Maine

2018

Backpacking alone on the Appalachian trail, a married woman meets a younger hiker and the two strangers become inexplicably drawn to one another.

Still

2018

When a young hiker stumbles onto an isolated farm after losing her way on the Appalachian Trail, she is taken in by a strange yet beautiful couple desperate to protect a secret deep in the mountains.

The Clearing

2024

A storm that has been continuing to swell over Appalachia for 5 months with no sign of stopping. While journalist and her colleague are on route to continue ongoing interviews with survivors about strange psychological behavior following the storm, she inexplicably wakes up alone in an empty jeep, parked in a clearing, surrounded only by Appalachian wilderness. After realizing the car will not start, she makes the bold decision to find her way back to civilization on foot, despite being lost. With vivid recurring thoughts and visions of personal childhood trauma manifesting around her, she finds herself unable to leave the woods, instead mysteriously returning to the clearing.

A Good Baby

2000

A young loner wandering the back roads of North Carolina comes across an abandoned baby. He immediately starts seeking the baby's parents, but starts developing a bond with the child that explores his own isolated roots.

Mountain Justice

1937

Stalwart Appalachian woman finds romance as she struggles to better herself and her people amid prejudice and familial abuse.

A Walk in the Woods

2015

After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.

Hillbilly Elegy

2020

An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.