In 1969, Bill Richardson and his wife uprooted their lives in New York City to move to Whitesburg, a small, rural town in eastern Kentucky. Richardson combined his filmmaking knowledge with a sizable federal grant to open Appalshop, a nonprofit arts hub for Appalachia’s aspiring filmmakers.
Born a decade after it opened, Richardson’s daughter, Anna, watched the organization evolve from a small group of film students to a beacon of Appalachian culture and history. Her father—who is also an architect—built Appalshop’s headquarters in Whitesburg.
Now a California resident, Anna Richardson White said she never lost her Kentucky twang.
“This accent has started so many conversations with people like, “Where are you from?” Richardson White said. “And I felt like I was always trying to explain this place that people just didn't really get. And I know that people have images of what eastern Kentucky is, mainly thanks to mass media and some films and stories and just a lot of the pretty sad tales that come out of the area.”
In her first short film “Appalheads,” she reflects on her life in eastern Kentucky, the misconceptions of her hometown and the life her parents built around Appalshop.
“I wanted to use this film as an opportunity, also to teach people and show people really how beautiful the region can be,” she said. “I think that idea of where you're from and then where you live, and how both those shape your identity, is something so many people can relate to.”
The film’s title comes from what Whitesburg locals called Appalshop filmmakers in its early days. At first, Richardson White said, it was meant to mock them.
“It was kind of embarrassing as a kid, because it was so different than what other people's families were doing, which I talked about in the film,” she said. “When I was growing up, almost everyone was working in the coal industry, and so for your dad not to be and then for your dad to be a filmmaker or an architect, it was a very different experience.”
Over time, she said the name became a term of endearment.
“I think definitely the folks who were there early are very proud of the fact that they were one of the first Appalheads associated with Appalshop.”
For Richardson White, film was not always on her radar. But she’s always loved storytelling.
“If you could keep people's attention and tell a good story, in school, on the playground, [and] if you could capture people's attention, you were really cool. I knew that from a very early age. I think part of that interest pushed me into the work that I was doing.”
She had been working in corporate tech and communications before she decided to team up with Los Angeles-based production company, Universe Creative to create “Appalheads.”
Home, belonging and connection
The short film is as much about Appalshop as it is about her parents, Richardson White said.
Her father is now in his early 80s and suffers from dementia.
“[My father] started forgetting words, and conversations are harder,” she said. “I felt like everything kind of aligned for me to actually take time away from doing the corporate tech thing that I've been doing for a long time and finally make this movie.
In July 2022, a deadly flood hit eastern Kentucky. Appalshop was hit hard, and many of its archives were damaged.
Richardson White said when she saw the building for the first time after the flood, she was overcome with grief.
“For the symbolic building, the center of Appalshop, to have been flooded, it was just so painful,” she said. “And then watching it was heightened by watching my Dad's experience.”
Appalshop relocated to a temporary office in Jenkins, about 15 miles away from Whitesburg in Letcher County.
Throughout the ordeal, Bill Richardson, who built Appalshop, said he wanted to help fix up the building.
“To watch my dad feel like he wants something to do. He's always been so focused on work. That's what made Appalshop work,” Richardson White said. “As you age, some of those things you'd love to do become harder and harder to do.”
She said the floods pushed her to create the film.
“There are themes that are much bigger than that specific storyline, and the themes are home, belonging, connection to a place that you may live far away from, and memory and aging.” she said. “And I think anyone who has a parent who's fortunate enough to see their 70s, 80s, 90s, is going to have some suffering, and you have to watch that.”
Richardson White has traveled to 18 different film festivals to screen her work, including the Louisville Flyover Film Festival where she won Best Short Film. She said she hopes to make the film available to stream by the end of the year.
