2013 Thin Line Film Fest - Blood Brother

Filmmakers Steve Hoover and Danny Yourd in attendance. Followed by the Opening Reception at UNT on the Square.

Rocky Braat lies, sweating, on the floor of a concrete hut. There is the incredible heat of the Indian noon and the ineffectual squeak of the ceiling fan stirring the hot air.

He has just returned from America, where Visa issues forced him to stay for two months. The children he spends his days among as an amateur dentist, cook, and brother are only a five minute walk across a field and down a red-dirt road, but his fever and the manner in which HIV has devastated their immune systems keeps him away.

A day later the fever breaks. He is back with the kids, rigging a projector and sheet to show them American movies, fixing a massive pot of Indian style macaroni and cheese. The danger has passed, and there is work to be done.

In the night he listens to the rats banging around in his metal locker and the bugs skittering across the floor and the ineffectual squeaking of the fan and wonders if tomorrow infection will break out, if next week a small boy will go completely blind, if next month his Visa will be denied again, and he’ll have to leave India and live in much more agreeable climates where people he loves do not die as easily as the wind changes directions.

Film Details:

Duration: 93 mins
Director/Editor: Steve Hoover
Producer: Danny Yourd
Cinematographer: John Pope

Information from the festival website