Sprung from a five-page treatment and fashioned into a striking blend of drama and documentary, writer/director Matt Porterfield's “Putty Hill” took a community's reaction to a young death and explored it from a number of different angles. Now, with that film leading into a successful Kickstarter campaign for his third feature, “I Used to Be Darker,” a trailer for the Sundance-bound result has finally hit the web.
With 'Darker' taking place in the same Baltimore area (where the helmer was raised) as his two previous films, Porterfield is certainly keeping things as intimate as ever, this time telling the story of a pregnant Northern Irish runaway (Deragh Campbell) who shacks up with American relatives, who are in the beginnings of a potential divorce themselves. The trailer — while letting the muted visuals take precedence over dialogue — features quite a large musical emphasis instead, both plot-wise and in the acoustic framing device (that's musician/actor Ned Oldham performing his band The Anomoanon's “One That Got Away,” by the way — listen to the original below).
Also starring Kim Taylor and Hannah Gross, and from a script that Porterfield co-wrote with Amy Belk, “I Used to Be Darker” promises to be another quietly affecting piece that we're looking forward to catching at Sundance soon. Check the trailer out below.