A modern day ‘Good Samaritan’ story. A man late to pick up his daughter gets a flat in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t have the tools to fix his tire and no one will stop to help. An unlikely family stops to assist the man. Although it takes a while to work through the cultural barrier, the man leaves changed with a deeper understanding of love and family from this simple interaction.
Directors Statement
The story was inspired by an internet comment that blew up back in 2010. I had that comment saved and would regularly go back to it, and I’ve always wanted to bring it to life. I love the depth and brilliance of this ‘good samaritan’ style parable. It’s timeless, and it challenges the idea of ‘who is my neighbor?’ in both a convicting but inspiring way. It breathes life and desire to care for others in an authentic way because of the human spark over anything else.
For the film, I wanted to mirror the family dynamic and also directly mirror the father’s themselves. They both are blue-collar, hard working guys. They both drive Ford trucks. Even their attitude and ‘machismo’ is similar.
Casting was initially pretty difficult (finding a cohesive family is tough). I found Elizabeth (the mother) first, she was amazing. After reaching out everywhere, I finally stumbled across Christopher (the father) on instagram. His read was incredible. Finally I found Andrea (Maria), she’s a friends younger sister that spoke fluent Spanish. She had no acting experience, but she was incredible and did such an amazing job on her first film.
Chasing the sun was the last difficult piece. We shot over 3-days, so framing the right scenes in that golden hour was so key. Once the sun set behind the mountain, we were done for the day and couldn’t capture anything else. JP did an amazing job getting coverage and working fast. He was moving around like a mad man using every second to capture moments in perfect light.