A unique story of friendship, race, and self-discovery, WELCOME TO PINE HILL was born out of a chance encounter between filmmaker Keith Miller and star Shannon Harper, who found themselves arguing over a lost dog one night in Brooklyn.
Straddling the worlds of fact and fiction, documentary and narrative, WELCOME TO PINE HILL follows Shannon, a recently reformed drug dealer, now working as a claims adjuster by day and bouncer by night. When Shannon receives earth-shattering news, he is compelled to make peace with his past and search for freedom beyond the concrete jungle of New York City. Featuring an extraordinarily intimate performance by Harper playing himself, he is supported by an eclectic cast of both emerging talent and real people. Traveling from the backyards of Brooklyn crack houses to the lush Catskill Mountains, the film is a meditative journey about how we choose to live our lives.
In collaboration with the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, of which director Keith Miller is a part, WELCOME TO PINE HILL is a 2011 Independent Filmmaker Lab participant and Miller's debut feature. The cast includes Shannon Harper, Jaiden Kaine, and Mary Meyers. The film is produced by Elisabeth Holm. Cinematography is by Alex Mallis, Lily Henderson, and Begonia Colomar, with editing by Keith Miller.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
My films take accidental encounters, intuitive leaps, and heightened realities to interrogate conditions of the real world. I work to make this happen by creating openings for reality to bleed into the story, in both the process and the final movie. The inevitable challenge is that the real world is messy, troubling and, in the deepest sense, beautiful. It is my hope that WELCOME TO PINE HILL has some of all three, offering moments of transformation for those participating in the film, whether cast, crew, or audience.
In the middle of the real-life event that is now the opening scene of PINE HILL, I realized that this experience was a challenge for both of us. Over the course of our long conversation regarding our dog, we both consciously and unconsciously worked through issues of race, class, and above all, our love of this puppy. That respect has only grown as we have continued to work together, and watching him work has given rise to a great admiration for his ability as an actor and as a friend.
PINE HILL blurs reality and fiction and questions that very opposition. Some events in the film are taken directly from life. Others take real situations and transform them. Still others are completely invented. I have tried to disregard the often-rigid line between fiction and fact to make a story that is as real as it is urgent. I believe this is a film that incites dialogue and refuses clichés of class and race often depicted on screen. I hope WELCOME TO PINE HILL might bring a little more empathy into our world, just as it did between Shannon and me.
