This film will be followed by the short film, When the Moon Returns.

Every Sunday Claire sits in a Quaker meetinghouse and listens for the Holy Spirit. But for her father Mark, the voice of God has fallen silent. In his despair, Mark takes his own life, leaving his family and their small community of faith to reckon with his loss. But for Claire, mourning is less about letting go than waiting for the presence she feels all around her to coalesce.

Working in the same vein as such disparate filmmakers as Josephine Decker and Ricky D’Ambrose, Alabama-based indie warhorse Brandon Colvin (Sabbatical, A Dim Valley) uses DIY strictures and an austere style not to enforce realism but to knock on the door to something beyond it. Led by performances that ripple with life, The World Drops Dead plants its feet firmly in a drama of interiors while inviting in a strange guest, one who brings with them the lingering luminescence of the otherworldly.

- Jonathan Kieran