Shades of My Soul Three hundred years. One Family. What did history do to them?


2026 Screenplay by Galen R. Collins - WGA #391132 

Logline IInspired by his grandfather’s charge to never forget his people, a man searches three centuries of family history, bringing generations of ancestors to life as he confronts the courage, cruelty, sacrifice, and choices that shaped his family—and ultimately himself. Synopsis Inspired by his grandfather’s charge to never forget his people, a man searches three centurieIn 1959, after decades of research, Will Averitt completes a family history spanning three centuries. As the records become people, their stories carry us from seventeenth-century Cornwall through colonial Virginia, the American Revolution, westward migration, slavery, the Civil War, and the rebuilding of a family scattered across a changing nation. What begins as a story of courage, survival, and ambition gradually reveals a more complicated inheritance—one shaped by love and sacrifice, but also by slavery, war, loss, and moral contradiction. As Will confronts both the achievements and failures of those who came before him, he comes to understand that family history is not simply something we inherit; it becomes part of who we are. s of family history, bringing generations of ancestors to life as he confronts the courage, cruelty, sacrifice, and choices that shaped his family—and ultimately himself. Themes Inheritance. Memory. Moral complexity. Becoming. What do we inherit from those who came before us—and how do their courage, failures, choices and contradictions shape who we become? Format & Audience • Format: Film ( 90 minutes) • For fans of: The Tree of Life and The Butler
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