NARRATIVE - Condemnation
Narrative Feature
Title: Condemnation
Page Count: 112 pages
Project Status: In Development
Logline
On assignment in a dying farm town, an environmental site inspector unearths new evidence pertaining to a brutal local murder and unwittingly makes herself the target of an unseen killer.
Synopsis
On assignment in a dying farm town, Laura Peel, an environmental site inspector with a drinking problem, inadvertently unearths new evidence pertaining to the brutal murder of a local farmer, Big Hank, for which two migrant laborers have been scapegoated. Frustrated by her job and eager to exonerate the incarcerated immigrants, Laura remains in town and hunts for more evidence.
Her suspicions drift from the farm manager to a local construction magnate, even to the motel clerk with whom she's having an affair. But her search for answers only leads to more questions, about the town, its residents, and who stood to gain from Big Hank's death.
When she eventually digs too deep, Laura finds herself the killer's next target. After surviving multiple attempts on her life and witnessing another slaying, Laura flees town, abandoning any hope of identifying the mastermind behind the murder.
Additional Project Information
Condemnation explores the desperate lengths people will go to claim their piece of the American Dream, set against a backdrop of economic decline and social change. It is rooted in characters and circumstances I encountered growing up in Western New York during the 80s and 90s.
The story unfolds in Riches, a fictional farm town where years of hardship have hollowed out the community and left many residents looking for a way out. Our protagonist, Laura Peel, is an outsider. While she quickly sees through the nativist resentment scapegoating two migrant laborers for the murder of a local farmer, her patronizing attitude toward the town's residents prevents her from identifying the real killer, even when she becomes the next target.
More than a backdrop, the town itself will be a character. To achieve realism and authenticity, I plan to shoot Condemnation in Western New York, where the rural setting provides all the trappings of neo-noir: vacant downtowns, crumbling mills and lonely roads with no streetlights. High-contrast source lighting and endless shadows will provide a sinister edge and hard-bitten grittiness typically reserved for films set amidst urban decay or way out West. A minimalist aesthetic will evoke both the physical desolation of the setting and the moral ambiguity of its characters.
Condemnation captures the suffocating desperation of a town left behind by economic and cultural stagnation as seen by an outsider who, try as she might, will never fully understand the place or its people.
Team
Written by: Timothy Covell, Director: Timothy Covell, DP: Sung Rae Cho
Seeking
Having established a strong creative vision for this project, I am seeking producing partners and investors.
Contact
Timothy Covell
585-750-8996