Another award-winning film from this year’s Sundance Film Festival is set for release in theaters. Jesse Moss’ documentary TheOvernighters which made its World Premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and received a “Special Jury Award for Intuitive Filmmaking” has been acquired by Drafthouse Films for release later this year. The New York Premiere is set to take place at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival.   The film chronicles the plight of desperate men as they chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields while a devoted Pastor risks everything to help them. 

 Filmmaker Jesse Moss spent 18 months in North Dakota as a one-man-documentary-crew intimately capturing extraordinary portraits of broken men and examining the tension between the moral imperative to “love thy neighbor,” and the response of one small town congregation and community when confronted by an influx of desperate strangers.

In the midst of the struggling economic climate of the United States, the oil business in small town Williston, North Dakota is booming. Thousands of desperate men and women are flocking to the region in search of work with little more than the clothes on their backs or the cars they arrived in. The great demand for housing has overwhelmed the community with many of those who have found employment without a place to live. Pastor Jay Reinke of Concordia Lutheran Church is under fire from the City Council, his community and the local newspapers for his heartfelt desire to open the church’s doors to allow the “overnighters” – as he calls them – to stay for a night, a week or sometimes even longer, sleeping on the floor, in the pews and in their cars in the Church parking lot. When the town learns that Reinke is housing men with criminal records, and a mounting controversy peaks within the pastor’s personal life, even his diehard quest for humanity can’t stop things from spiraling vastly out of control.

via comingsoon