Resident Alien

In DevelopmentFeature Documentary

Everyone Who Lived Here Thought the Land Was Theirs

A street in Lynchburg, Virginia holds 200 years of ownership. Everyone who lived here thought the land was theirs.

The street was a cattle farm before it was a road. Before that a larger farm. Before that, a colonial estate. The land has been subdivided, renamed, and handed down so many times that most of the people living on it now have no idea what came before them.

This film follows that history through the residents who remain: long-term neighbors, elderly widows, and a newcomer who just moved into a converted barn — guided by an 84-year-old man who has spent years researching every deed and plat going back to 1833. A 102-year-old man who once owned the barn is still alive. A sheep barn down the street is now someone's living room. The original farmhouse still stands at the end of the road.

Nobody talks about any of it.

Director Statement

I bought this house without knowing it was a barn. That sent me down a path I haven't found the end of yet. Every piece of land has a history. Most of us just don't ask.