Aging and out of tune, a once legendary rocker is offered eternal youth by a vain flower spirit in her garden… if the musician can enchant her with a song before sunset.

Mission Statement

The world’s been feeling heavy lately, but joy isn’t lost. Maybe with a little magic and a little music, we can find our groove again. Sweet Peony is a live-action, 12-minute short film about nature, community, and creative rebirth that will be as charming as it is soulful.

Hi Everyone!

I’m Chase Horton, co-founder of Kodama Productions alongside my partner, Caroline Huber. We started our company to help tell soulful, imaginative stories with universal reach. The first short we produced, the award-winning Confessions (2023, dir. Stephanie Kaznocha), found its way into the hearts of audiences worldwide. We are now thrilled to focus on our next movie: Sweet Peony.

What It's About

Meet Mystie Beetle. She was once the powerhouse frontwoman of the soul band The Joy Divine. Now she’s older, alone, and struggling with her craft. One late-summer afternoon, inside her overgrown greenhouse, something extraordinary happens: a wilting peony transforms into a flower nymph! With a flash of magic, the nymph makes Mystie young once more. The catch: the spell will fade by sundown unless the bard can delight her muse with a song.

Sweet Peony — Concept Art

But Mystie needs some help, and what follows is a 12-minute fantasia of music, magic, and spectacle; a playful, heartfelt story where funk meets fairy tale. At its core, it’s about re-igniting a faded spark by finding inspiration and community in unexpected places.

Imagine if Studio Ghibli stepped into live-action by mixing the humanist, creative spontaneity of Stop Making Sense (1984, dir. Jonathan Demme) with the magical-realist, mythic scope of Sinners (2025, dir. Ryan Coogler).

Why This Story

Having grown up attending church in the North Carolina sticks, I must’ve sung "Leaning on Everlasting Arms" countless times, ingraining into my DNA the electric feeling of when the whole congregation lifted into one voice. I would not call myself religious, but I know what the Spirit feels like, and lately I have been craving that kind of connection again. That longing planted the seed for a story about the divine joy of making music with others. The twist is that in this story, the “others” are not people. They are plants.

Sweet Peony also grew from the real science of how plants communicate and share knowledge. After reading Zoë Schlanger’s The Light Eaters and learning about community spaces like The Grief Garden in Nashville, Tennessee, I imagined a world where nature itself could teach us humility, balance, and belonging through music. I wanted to make a reminder for us to stay open to wonder, to treasure fellowship, and to listen closely to the living world around us.

Film Location: NunaVeda Greenhouse — Franklin, TN

Just as important is who this story centers. Black women are rarely placed at the heart of tales about creativity and nature, and I wanted to change that. My inspiration also comes from home, watching my two young daughters play and discover the world together. I thought it would be wonderful to give that same spirit of curiosity and joy to two grown-ups rediscovering life and each other in an enchanted garden.

The Magic

While Sweet Peony is a chamber piece where nature and memory blur into the spiritual, it will remain rooted in a textural reality. To bring this world to life, every bit of magic will be made by hand: a flower puppet that blinks awake, a handcrafted costume for the nymph in her human form, and sheets of rippling mylar casting shimmering light that make the greenhouse itself seem alive and breathing.

Handcrafted Peony Puppet

The music will carry that same spirit. Our songs and score are grounded in funk, soul, and gospel performed by Nashville musicians. And the plants will join the band, too. By capturing their hidden electrical pulses and feeding them through synthesizers, we will literally weave the voices of the garden into the music.

Meet the Team

Chase Horton (Writer/Director): Los Angeles–based producer and editor, who cut his teeth editing documentaries for filmmakers like Ken Burns (The U.S. and the Holocaust, The American Revolution) before co-founding Kodama Productions to bring unique stories to life.

Caroline Huber (Producer): Los Angeles-based former GIPHY product leader who now produces films centered on art, culture, and overlooked communities as co-founder of Kodama Productions.

Ryan Connors (Producer/ Songwriter /Composer): Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter who has toured globally as keyboardist and music director for artists including Hozier, while producing, arranging, and recording with numerous musicians over the past 15 years.

Annie Butler (Producer/ Songwriter): Nashville-based writer, teacher, and end-of-life doula whose work is rooted in nature, healing, and connection, spanning The Grief Garden she co-founded, her lyric writing with partner Ryan Connors, and her guidance for others through life’s final chapters.

Sarah Anne Pierpont (Cinematographer): Los Angeles-based cinematographer and AFI alum whose work spans narrative and documentary films, including Confessions (Palm Springs), Dirty Girl (Torino), Juliet (Cannes), and a new Amazon Studios series produced by Serena Williams.

Niki Firanek (Costume Designer): Los Angeles–based costume designer and stylist whose playful, vintage-inspired aesthetic brings color and character to films, music videos, and campaigns.

Jess Gilliam (Production Designer): California-based artist whose whimsical, handmade aesthetic blends playful storytelling with nostalgic, tactile craft honed over a decade in creative direction.

…and a talented collective of crew, designers, and musicians lending their efforts to help bring this vision to life.

Why We Need Help

Sweet Peony is an independent, community-driven short that can only happen with your support. We’re raising funds to:

Every dollar goes directly into telling this story the best way we can.

The Budget

Due to the severe winter storm that impacted Tennessee in January, we had to postpone production to May. To cover the costs associated with the delay, we are raising our goal to $60,000. This is the minimum needed to bring Sweet Peony to life. It covers cast and crew, production design, equipment, travel and lodging for our Tennessee shoot, post-production, music, and marketing.

Our stretch goal is $70,000. We have some amazing friends pitching in and working for free because they love the project, but times are hard, and if we have more funds, we’d love to pay them for their time! (We’re not paying ourselves. No kickbacks, we swear.)

How You Can Help

1. Back the campaign: Every contribution, big or small, gets us closer to cameras rolling.

2. Share the project: Spread the word to friends, family, and communities who care about music, nature, and soulful storytelling.

3. Join our community: We want this film to spark conversations about renewal, creativity, and how we care for each other and our planet.

The Impact

We want the movie to thrive beyond festivals. Sweet Peony is for:

By supporting us, you’re helping bring a timeless, soulful, and truly original story to life!