Synopsis
Before dawn, EVELYN CARTER leaves home with a mason jar, a hand shovel and a county record bearing the name ISAIAH BELL, a black sawmill worker lynched in Cleburne County, Alabama in 1937. She intends to collect soil from the site for a museum in Montgomery. On the way, Evelyn stops at a rural gas station. JIMMIE CUTLIP, a broad- shouldered white local in a trucker hat, watches her, then looks toward her car. Evelyn notices. Moments after she drives away, Jimmie climbs into a white pickup parked outside.
The county record leads Evelyn to an unmarked roadside. She kneels beside the ditch, but the ground is hard and pain shoots through her wrist as she tries to dig.
THEN THE SOUND OF AN ENGINE.
The same white pickup from the gas station passes, stops and backs toward her. Jimmie steps out. He tells Evelyn she is digging on private property. She begins with a lie. Then chooses the truth:
A BLACK MAN WAS LYNCHED HERE. IN 1937.
The county record places Isaiah’s death at Cutlip Farm. Jimmie’s grandfather lived there then. Reading it unlocks a childhood memory of a black woman who returned to the road every summer: Ruth Bell, Isaiah’s sister. His family knew who she was but never explained why she came. When Jimmie offers to help, Evelyn hands him the shovel.
HE BREAKS THE GROUND.
SHE FILLS THE JAR.
Side by side, they confront what the soil has carried and what generations of silence has buried.
Key Personnel
Astrid Lark (Writer/Producer) – Award-winning producer and composer of Oscar-qualified Olive; founder of Fire on the Moon creative studio.
Ted Nash (Director) – Two-time Grammy winner and four-time nominee; acclaimed composer, conductor and 25-year Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra member. He has created with Glenn Close and Wynton Marsalis, earned recent music credits on The Bride! and The Devil Wears Prada 2, and co-directed the award-winning documentary Resonancia.
Okema Moore (Producer) – Producer of Oscar-qualified Chocolate with Sprinkles, winner of the ABFF HBO Short Film Award and a 2025 NAACP Image Award nominee. NY Women in Film & TV and the Black TV & Film Collective board member.
Andrew Carlberg (Executive Producer) – Oscar- and Emmy Award-winning producer of Skin;
credits include Oscar-nominated Feeling Through and HBO Max’s The Fallout.
Robert Stroker (Executive Producer) – Vice Provost for the Arts at Temple University and Joslyn G. Ewart Dean of its Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts.
Rachel Imbriglio (Casting Director) – Artios Award nominee and three-time Heller Award nominee whose credits include Netflix’s DAHMER, 9-1-1 and American Horror Story.
