Media/Arts

Rich Hill: U.S. Grand Jury Prize 2014 Sundance Film Festival

An examination of challenges, hopes and dreams of the young residents of a rural American town.

Rich Hill, Missouri. Seventy miles south of Kansas City, fifteen miles east of the Kansas border. Once a thriving mining town, shortly after World War II, the coal was gone – mined out. Stores closed, people moved away, farms were sold. It’s a story that could be told in hundreds of towns across America.

But people still live here: 1,393 of them at last count. Deep potholes line the gravel roads, and property tax is almost nonexistent. The town center is littered with piles of bricks, and crumbling buildings are all that remain of the original bank, the corner pharmacy, a cafe. Yet there is still the dream of transformation on the horizon: if only the citizens could attract more business or Rich Hill could be home to an industry once again.

Every year on the 4th of July, like many communities across America, the town puts on a grand celebration, with a carnival and a parade. Rich Hill has a record-setting pie auction to raise the funds for the fireworks. It is a once-a-year time to be part of something larger and grander – the way things used to be – for even a few days. And then the carnival pulls out.

— http://www.richhillfilm.com

If you ever find yourself traveling down Interstate 49 through Missouri, try not to blink—you may miss Rich Hill, population 1,396. Rich Hill is easy to overlook, but its inhabitants are as woven into the fabric of America as those living in any small town in the country.

Filmmaking cousins Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo embark upon an immersive and dazzlingly cinematic journey into the lives of Andrew, Harley, and Appachey, three Rich Hill boys navigating the often-treacherous road between childhood and adolescence. Despite the isolation and deprivation of their individual circumstances, they long for the same things we all want: a nice house, dinner on the table, and a healthy, loving family. Droz Tragos and Droz Palermo’s intimate connection to their subjects serves as a window into a too-often bleak environment, where simply getting by is considered a success, but the hope for a normal life and a brighter future persists.

— http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/13938/rich_hill