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JILL

By Steven MICHAEL HAYES

Drama - Completed 2021

From the distance of 15 years Jill, now a grown woman, attempts to piece together her tumultuous childhood, lived off the grid in the woods of Monatana in a utopia built by her charismatic father until it is ripped apart by paranoia and tragedy.

- Year of production
- 2021
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- SWITZERLAND, GERMANY
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Director(s)
- Steven MICHAEL HAYES
- Writer(s)
- Steven MICHAEL HAYES
- Cast
- Tom PELPHREY, Juliet RYLANCE
- Producer(s)
- Christof NERACHER (hugofilm), Daniel BAUR (K5 Film)
- Synopsis
- Jill, a young woman estranged from her troubled mother, receives a letter from her older brother who is soon to be released from prison. The letter throws everything she thought she knew into doubt as Jill embarks on a journey to her past in order to piece together the events of her childhood that had once been so idyllic…
  Living off the grid in 100 acres of Montana woodland, life for Jill and her family is a genuine utopia. Her charismatic father Ted and beautiful mother Joann have fashioned a truly free and self-sufficient world where they live ‘within the rules of nature” and far from the disappointments and hypocrisies of 1970’s America.
  But conflict arises as her older brothers grow up and begin to question their father’s rigid insistence on disengagement from the outside world. An accident involving Jill’s youngest brother Nathan leads to an argument between her mother and father about the need for outside medical attention. A rift develops between them and growing paranoia in Ted sees him tighten his grip on the family and step up his regime of total isolationism.
  With their utopia now irreparably fractured Ted’s increasingly erratic behaviour pushes the whole family to the edge, with consequences for their dream life that they could never have envisaged.