FLYOVER

PROOF-OF-CONCEPT

In 2021, we completed the FLYOVER proof-of-concept short, viewable here. The film explores a day in the life of a modern Midwestern town, as a farmhand hunts for the cow that escaped under his watch. To premiere the film, we returned to that very town and organized an event at the county's only movie theater, filling the seats twice-over in August of 2021. After this initial community enthusiasm, FLYOVER went on to become an award-winning short film, receiving many Official Selections at Film Festivals across the United States, from Kansas City to Los Angeles, New Orleans to Knoxville. The strong reception of the short film with national and local audiences inspired our team to pursue a feature length version.

THE FEATURE FILM

As the seasons change over the course of a year in rural Missouri, slice-of-life vignettes reveal the intricately interwoven dramas of a tight knit community. Fishermen trawl for sturgeon eggs on the Mississippi River and sell caviar to the Coasts. A part-time country preacher delivers his sermons remotely, thanks to Starlink Internet. Farm-hands use aerial drones to search for lost cattle, but discover something much more mysterious. FLYOVER captures the stories, legends and myths of a town learning to reconcile the traditional values of heritage with the demands of encroaching technological progress.

Our unique filmmaking approach is a blend of narrative-fiction and documentary techniques designed to prioritize collaboration above all else. FLYOVER is a community-based project intended to engage its subjects in a creative process that treats authorship like a rotating responsibility. Casting local non-actors, co-creating with local artists, teaming up with local institutions, and benefiting from a two-year immersive research & writing process, FLYOVER strives for an ‘open-source’ creative process, while amplifying a rich folk-culture that is largely misrepresented in mainstream media.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I was born and raised in the Midwest. As a filmmaker, the demands of my profession have forced me to split my adult life across California and my home in Missouri. Consequently, I’ve gained a unique dual perspective which has allowed me to communicate rural life to City Dwellers, and to help Midwesterners see themselves from the uncommon viewpoint of a loving outsider. Popular media often depicts Midwestern settings in simplistic and frustrating ways. Drug dealers, gun-runners, and bumbling hillbilly idiots are classic stereotypes of Midwesterners on-screen. These flat caricatures are nothing like the Midwest I know, which is full of incredibly loving, ingenuitive, community-oriented individuals, who draw a grounded sense of identity from their environment, and the complex histories contained therein.

The Coastal / Midwestern divide is now more obvious than ever, and nothing excites me more than a film that creates conversation across self-created bubbles. Over the past 7 years, I’ve prepared a film that will lift up the daily drama’s of America’s Modern Heartland to the scale of the silver screen, because I believe that “Flyover Country” is well worth that quality of attention. If you believe in representing the Modern Midwest in an authentic and cinematic way, please consider contributing to the project.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to learn about our film.

THE TEAM

Brian White, Director/Producer - Brian White has led Los Angeles camera departments with a Midwestern flair for 10+ years, most recently on the upcoming multi-part series "Willie Nelson & Family," which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2023. After focus-pulling on a Super Bowl ad and leading camera teams on more than twenty feature films, Brian is excited to bring his talents home to direct this film - a project he's worked toward his entire career.

Anthony Lucido, Producer - Anthony Lucido is an award-winning filmmaker with just over a decade of on-set production experience. His career began directing music videos for local bands, which gained the attention of several media outlets including NPR. He served as Director of Photography for the documentary "Every Act of Life," filming the life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Eric Colonna, Producer - As a documentary photographer and photojournalist, Eric Colonna has spent a majority of his career behind the lens, covering national politics, extreme weather events, visual ethnography, and intimate character portraits. He lensed the feature length documentary "Bombie," a study of the legacy of war in Laos, which played to critical acclaim at the Raindance film festival in London. His recent work has premiered on national television as well as film festivals nationwide.

As a team, we've developed a unique production process together across a multitude of projects, resulting in cinematic aesthetics and strong relationships with film crews without studio budgets. Over the last ten years, our short films have played worldwide, with Official Selections at many prestigious festivals including New Orleans, Atlanta, & Vancouver, as well as online with NoBudge and Short of the Week. Our team won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival, and recently were in consideration for the 2023 Academy Award for Narrative Short Film.

If you are interested in learning more about our film, or in discussing the project further, please visit us at flyovermovie.com