ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
A closeted female detective returns to her backwoods hometown when the only woman she’s ever been with is murdered, but finds corruption surrounding a huge business deal keeps everyone quiet.

SYNOPSIS
THE LONG SHADOW is a narrative feature film, which on the surface is a neo-noir, small-town murder mystery. In reality, however, it is a story about identity—about knowing how you are, and who you aren’t.

Noir is a powerful genre because it holds a mirror up to characters and audiences alike, forcing them to take a hard, and sometimes uncomfortable, look at their values and beliefs. Stories in the noir canon are built around lies and the truth, honesty and hypocrisy. Where the values we hold up and the world in which we live collide is where THE LONG SHADOW speaks.

This film was born out of, and reflects on, the intense feelings of division running through our country today. At a time when we are deeply split along lines of race, class, and ideology, it’s more important than ever to examine what accounts for the stark difference between who we are and who we want to be.

Daniel Lafrentz, the director and co-writer, spent several years living as an outsider—a Silicon Valley-bred transplant living in the Cajun cultural hub of Lafayette, Louisiana. During his time there he became close with both members of the Southern LGBTQ community, as well as citizens of the small agricultural hamlets who have watched their hometowns wither around them due to the uneven distribution of prosperity in the recovery from the economic recession.

By incorporating the substance of these experiences, the film hopes to capture both the common humanity and detailed nuances of their individual experiences. The film’s ultimate goal is to engender empathy for both sides of the ideological divide, in order to better understand what puts them so deeply at odds with one another.

PROJECT TYPE Narrative Feature

DIRECTOR Daniel Lafrentz
PRODUCER Jeremy Hill, Sam Claitor

WEBSITE thelongshadowfilm.org