Impossible Town

Directed by Meg Griffiths and Scott Faris

2023 01:27

Unscripted Feature Film Festivals

When her father dies unexpectedly, Dr. Ayne Amjad is thrust to the helm of a decades-long struggle to aid a southern West Virginia town beset by cancer-causing chemicals. Haunted by her late father’s mandate to “help others” at all costs, Ayne is caught between her dream of raising a family and an audacious but all-consuming plan to relocate the town and bring closure to her father’s work.

ABOUT
BIO
SCREENINGS
AWARDS
CREDITS
GALLERY

Genre

Documentary Indigenous True Story

Synopsis

After observing exceptionally abnormal rates of cancer in his Minden patients in the mid 1980s, Pakistani-born oncologist Dr. Hassan Amjad became the southern West Virginian town’s greatest champion, advocating fiercely for recognition of the persistent risk to human health caused by carcinogenic PCBs left from the mining industry. When Hassan passes from a massive heart attack, his unsuspecting daughter Ayne, also a physician, inherits his decades-long advocacy efforts overnight. Ayne hatches an ambitious plan to relocate the entire town to a 97-acre plot of land purchased by her late father as a retirement site. When a global pandemic unexpectedly thrusts Ayne into a powerful state government position, she sees an opportunity to move past her relocation efforts and expand her locus of impact well beyond Minden. Her new work requires that she abandon her private practice and subsumes her identity almost completely. As pressures mount on all sides, Ayne enlists the help of her personal lawyer to build a class-action lawsuit against the EPA in a last-ditch effort to help. Minden’s activist residents bristle at the new attorney’s aggressive approach, and this partnership implodes in dramatic fashion when small town gossip leads to accusations of fraud. Left with few options and the cathartic acknowledgment that her father’s death continues to haunt her, she must choose between her sense of duty and her own happiness.

Bio

Meg Griffiths began her career as a photo and video journalist at the Houston Chronicle and then held a leadership role at Teach For America where she built the nonprofit’s first video studio. After overseeing content development and digital strategy at an LA-based agency, Meg co-founded Universe Creative, a documentary production company that collaborates with foundations, nonprofits, and socially conscious brands. Meg’s work has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is supported by the International Documentary Association and the Redford Center. She holds a MA in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Her debut feature film, IMPOSSIBLE TOWN, premiered at Mountainfilm in Telluride, CO, and Meg is a co-chair of the Documentary Producers Alliance.