Jess + Moss

Jess, age 18 (Sarah Hagan) and Moss, age 12 (Austin Vickers) are second cousins in the dark-fire tobacco fields of rural Western Kentucky. Without immediate families that they can relate to, and lacking friends their own age, they only have each other. Over the course of a summer they venture on a journey exploring deep secrets and future hopes while confronted with fears of isolation, abandonment and an unknown tomorrow. Through a series of memories and vignettes, director Clay Jeter creates a lyrical tale of two solitary, playful and young souls. Jeter delicately imposes a complex assemblage of ways of looking and listening - planes of focus, select pieces of music, and expert sound engineering call attention to cryptic, but suggestive details. The film creates a world where mundane elements swell to bursting and demonstrate the power of cinema to capture the sensation of memory; the beautiful and tragic feeling of the fleeting; and the preciousness of youth and all of its disasters.