SHARK PARTY MEDIA

​

​

Director Andrew Morgan (Long Gone By, The True Cost) is set to release his latest feature film, Samantha Rose, conceived of, shot and completed during the 2020 pandemic in a small and safe cast and crew setting in the rural settings of the Pacific Northwest. The film will be available to rent and own on North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms on September 7, 2021 through Freestyle Digital Media.

 

Centering non-binary actor, Sam Rose, the feature is a tale of a young woman battling family codependence and aimlessness alike. Samantha Rose returns to her hometown in northern Oregon and is reunited with a childhood friend and his misfit commune of friends where they work the fall harvest on the surrounding vineyards. Sam is lost, working a dead-end job, and afraid to pursue a real life of her own, while this ragtag family of runaways are fearless and free, leading Sam on a journey of discovery and healing. There are motorcycle rides and homemade wine, midnight swims and bonfires, horses, camping, and a love story that unfolds as Sam comes to see her life for what it really is: her own.

 

Said Andrew Morgan, “With so much heaviness in the real world, it felt like the perfect time to make something beautiful that hopefully could give people a sense of relief and escape from it all.” Months into the pandemic, with current projects on hold, he invited a group of friends up to Oregon to make a film together. “We needed to create something and I wanted to see if we could capture that simple joy of telling a story the way we used to in backyards growing up.” Filmed on a shoestring budget with all first-time actors, no famous faces and and very little time before other projects were starting, everyone agreed to come and set out together for what would become what Morgan describes as “absolutely unforgettable days.” 

 

He says, “we built our own little world out there. We rode motorcycles, jumped off cliffs, drank wine, played music, outran forest fires, laughed so hard it hurt and made a new film that we are SO excited to share with you.”

 

Said Sam Rose, the lead in the film, “People showed up in the face of the pandemic to create a story that they believed in and there is nothing more beautiful than that.”

 

Centering a non-male protagonist was important to the team and to the actors. Said the first-time actor and lead, Sam Rose, “Everyone goes through what Samantha Rose goes through in the film whether it be self doubt, insecurities, or being lost. Having the story be told by someone who isn’t a white cis male gives a dynamic nature to the human experience. I want everyone who is on any spectrum of gender to understand the universal nature of this experience.” 

 

In fact the entire cast of Samantha Rose was made up of first-time actors; all of them were artists in various capacities including musicians and visual artists, but this was their first time acting in a feature film role. 

 

 

About Andrew Morgan:

Andrew is an internationally recognized, award-winning filmmaker focused on telling stories for a better tomorrow. His experience includes a broad range of work that spans narrative and documentary storytelling for multiple film and new media projects that have been filmed and released all over the world. Previous films include After the End (2013), The True Cost (2015), The Heretic (2018) and Long Gone By (2020). The New York Times described his unique style as “gentle, humane investigations,” and Vogue Magazine wrote that it is “evidence that each of us can act as a catalyst for change within our own lives and work together towards a greater good.” He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Emily and their four kids.

 

 

Samantha Rose Online: Website - Trailer - PR Resources

​