O Pioneer, the latest feature documentary from Clara Lehmann & Jonathan Lacocque (Born in a Ballroom), will receive its World Premiere at this month’s Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in San Jose, California (August 15-30). The filmmakers, who are partners in the creative studio Coat of Arms in Helvetia, West Virginia, will be in attendance at the festival’s 33rd edition.
“We’re thrilled to start our film festival journey in California at Cinequest,” said the co-directors. “The festival’s stamp of approval gives us hope that these stories — often mistold or overlooked — are important. We’re also confident audiences will enjoy the film’s ambitious mix of live action, musical interludes and hand-drawn animation.”
The film celebrates three Appalachians from West Virginia as they embark upon an important journey — a journey that unfolds in the midst of a pandemic and personal heartache. Weaving narration with archival pioneer footage, candid moments from each subject, poetic vignettes and dream-like animation, O Pioneer redefines what it means to be a pioneer and asks viewers to courageously champion the pioneer within.
The project also aims to rethink the stereotypical understanding of the American pioneer through a modern narrative set in West Virginia, which continues to experience a decline in population. In 2017, the state ranked second highest in both numeric and percentage population decline. With this exodus and the ravages of opioids and joblessness across the state, those that stay face two paths, as the filmmakers frame it: one of hopelessness and apathy, and the other of the pioneer.
Following its World Premiere at Cinequest, O Pioneer will screen publicly at two additional events, the Richmond International Film Festival (Sept. 26-Oct. 1) and Clarksburg, West Virginia’s MTN Craft Film Festival (Sept. 29-30). Additional festival screenings will be announced as they become available and an Appalachian tour of screenings will follow the film’s festival run.
Directed by Lehmann and Lacocque, O Pioneer stars (in order of appearance) Kaïa Kater, Nellie Rose Gundersen Davis, Tim Hibbs and James Morley. Written by Lehmann and produced by Lehmann, Lacocque and Grace Lawson, the film features cinematography by Lacocque, who also edits with Chris Parkhurst to a score composed by Ho-Ling Tang.
