A sheriff comes under fire when two S.B.I. agents question his involvement in an unsolved murder case that shares distinct similarities with a recent homicide

In 1997, outside the small town of Abeithorn, North Carolina, Roseanne Barnes was brutally killed near her mountainside home. The last person to see her alive? A rookie cop: Officer Jefferies. Twenty years later the murder remains unsolved. The once young man, now sheriff, is questioned by two S.B.I. agents about that night. As he recounts the events, the investigators grow suspicious that Jefferies is withholding details that could unravel what happened to Roseanne and how her murder may be connected to a recent homicide – less than a mile from where she was found on Miner’s Mountain.

Miner’s Mountain is defining short film directed and produced by Bennett Pellington. All the production pieces come together wonderfully to create the incredibly tense story. Lead by a real passionate cast that were truly able to convey the raw emotions and fears. But’s it’s the film’s particular structure that adds the additional spin to the story. Interestingly enough, it’s not quite the turn out that Bennett expected after his first shoot.

I wrote the script in early 2014. In July that same year we shot for 3 nights in the mountains of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway. On paper, we all felt like we had a good story. But after finishing the cut, I could tell we were missing something and I couldn’t let it go. The story was there but the arc wasn’t. It was more of a few scenes compiled together as a set-up, and the original ending was way too vague. For 2 ½ years I revisited the edit every once in a while, trying to will some sort of arc out of it.

Then, in early 2017, I toyed with the idea of using what we shot as flashbacks and write new content with the main character set in present day. That was interesting because, not only did it add more conflict, it completed the story arc I originally envisioned. So, using the original script as a roadmap to weave truth and fiction, I wrote the present day scenes. In August 2017 we shot for 3 more days in Wilmington, NC. This time it felt right and we were proud of the story we told.
In the following 2 years I worked and saved what I could to fund our post budget. We met our goal and completed the film on July 1st, 2019 – over 5 years since I wrote the first draft.

I’m attracted to characters with guilty consciences, and the experience I’m most trying to relay in this short is that of identity. How we view ourselves, how others see what they want to see, and the choices we make that ultimately define who we really are.