The Life We Leave

The inaugural Park City Film Festival begins October 23rd, and KPCW's Sydney Weaver reports a film by a local will open the festival.

"What if our final act could give something back to the Earth?" That's the question Park City director and producer JJ Gerber aims to answer with his documentary feature, The Life We Leave.

The film follows Michael Truman, a finance guy who seizes on an opportunity in the funeral industry to turn humans into soil.

He, he sees a business opportunity there, but as he starts to open his company, he, he, you know, he understands the science.

Um, a lot of discussion right now, as Katie mentioned, about just the future of independent film and where filmmakers can find audiences.

You know, I just heard that like A24 Films has dropped their documentary program.

So how important are festivals like this, South by Southwest, to, to emerging and independent filmmakers?

They're-- It's, it's like our last place to get films out right now.

Um, so it's super important and, and especially these community festivals that, that pop up have this, have probably stronger audiences than some of the bigger festivals that are out there because people are, are ingrained in their communities, and they're interested to see what, um, is being curated for their community.

And so I, I really love what Katie's doing with, with the Park City Film Festival and the, and I'm super supportive of it.

And yeah, it's, it's really hard right now to, A, make a doc because it's hard to get them funded, um, unless you're making a certain specific documentary that fits the algorithm, right? And then- And then festivals, there's hundreds and hundreds of films out there, and so it's really hard to get your film seen and, and selected and, and out there on the festival circuit.

So it's never been harder, but, um, it's a super rewarding experience when I- when you are able to ki- you create something that connects with people.