I’m Josh Mayfield. I am raising funds for my graduate school short film, The 40-Year Gun. This film is about a group of recent high school grads who move to an abandoned house in the woods to fend off the responsibilities of growing up. They experiment with drugs, party, and comfort each other as they accept the end of their world. The illusion lasts until one of their untimely deaths returns them to reality.

When I was 12, I moved to rural Indian Trail, North Carolina. It was an amalgamation of suburban neighborhoods, mobile homes, abandoned locales, and stroads — dangerous, multi-lane thoroughfares you encounter in nearly every small town in America. My friends and I were always bored; we desperately wanted to break our everyday routine, and we created fun however we could. One day, we stumbled upon an abandoned house in the woods: a tiny white home with broken windows and peeling paint, overgrowth threatening to swallow it into the earth. We found family photographs and furniture scattered throughout the home; ghosts of a family, an abandoned life. We did everything here until a new family moved in.

I always wondered what happened to that family. Why did they leave so quickly? Why did we feel so at peace in that space? This story was born out of these experiences.

Please donate if you can! Thank you so much!