In the US, the word “hillbilly” often refers to the inhabitants of the Appalachians, a region devastated economically, ecologically, and socially. This film is a portrait of one such hillbilly family told through the words of one of their own.
In the Appalachian Mountains, east of Kentucky, people feel less American than Appalachian. They don’t always recognize the authority of the US-government. Some of them don’t pay their taxes, even if it means doing without running water or electricity. Over time, the inhabitants of this area of the “white rural America” have seen an explosive mix made of economic decline, ecological disaster, and social violence. In the US they’re often called “hillbillies”. An insult some of them use to define themselves, almost as a provocation. This film is a portrait of a hillbilly family told through the words of one of their own—combining documentary observation and a surprising interior world, witnessing a world on the verge of disappearing.
