Ragged Heart
Director: Evan McNary
United States, 2021, 85 min
Shooting Format:RED Dragon 5K
Festival Year:2022
Category:Narrative Feature
Genres:Drama, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Thriller, Ghost Story
WINNER: Best Actor Male
Cast:Patterson Hood, Josh Mikel, Jim White, Kate McManus, Eddie Craddock, Willow Avalon
Crew:Writers: Evan McNary, Debrah McNary. Producer: Debrah McNary. Supervising Editor: Julio Perez IV; Composer: Mondo Boys
Email:raggedheartfilm@gmail.com
Synopsis
When his estranged daughter tragically dies, a washed-up musician sets out to complete the last song she wrote, hoping to somehow redeem himself and let her rest in peace.
This rusted-out, supernatural drama is set in the rural outskirts of Athens, GA -- a small town with a legendary music scene.
And it was fueled by the restless spirit of American New Wave films like Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, and Tender Mercies and shares common ground with more recent films like PIG and Nomadland.
Trailer
About the director
Evan grew up in a religious cult where he assisted exorcisms from a young age and had no access to secular movies or music until his mid-teens. After high school, he made up for lost time by studying art in San Francisco, logging thousands of miles and countless audio books as a cross-country trucker and then earning a film MFA at Florida State.
Next stop was Los Angeles, where he worked at ICM and Anonymous Content for a number of years before moving into writing and directing.
Although he’s been making commercials and branded content for years, Ragged Heart is his first feature film, which he directed and co-wrote with his sister Debrah (who also produced the film).
Filmmaker's note
RAGGED HEART was fueled by the restless spirit of American New Wave films like Five Easy Pieces, Nashville and Tender Mercies and shares common ground with more recent films like Blue Ruin and Nomadland. As in those films, we want audiences to feel like they’ve lived among our fascinating, if flawed individuals and experienced their rough and tumble worlds firsthand.
We hope it introduces audiences to a little patch of the country and its characters that are often overlooked or typecast but have their own truth and unique perspective to share.
The majority of the cast and crew are also natives of the region, bringing their personal understanding of small town, southern life to the creative process.
We also owe a great amount of thanks to the whole Athens community who embraced and supported our effort from the very beginning.