Doc - Peonies

Documentary Feature

Title: Peonies

TRT: 00:07:28

Project Status: In Production

Logline 

As Filipina American veteran Ice Mahoney and her husband Ryan learn to grow peonies in Homer, Alaska, their story opens onto a community of growers navigating climate volatility, rural labor, and the fragile systems that carry beauty across distance.

Synopsis

In Alaska, peonies bloom in midsummer, after the flowers have faded in most other regions. For a few brief weeks, farms near Homer become part of a global floral economy, harvesting and shipping fragile stems of beauty across great distances.

Peonies in Alaska follows Isobelle “Ice” Mahoney, a Filipina American Air Force veteran, and her husband Ryan, a veteran and seventh-generation farmer from Iowa, as they learn the demanding work of growing peonies at Alaska Red Cabin Farm. Their story of reinvention unfolds alongside longtime growers and cooperative leaders, revealing a world shaped by timing, weather, labor, and risk.

Through intimate observation and lyrical visuals, the film looks beyond the romance of flowers to ask what it means to cultivate beauty in a changing climate. Each bloom carries more than color: it holds memory, labor, uncertainty, and the fragile systems that connect remote land to distant markets.

Team

Director: Theresa Loong; Cinematographer and Producer: Lara Sfire

Seeking

Development Funds and Distribution

Rights Available

All rights available

Contact

Theresa Loong

tloong@gmail.com