OCTOBER COUNTRY is a haunting multi-generational story of a working-class family coping with poverty, teen pregnancy, foster care and the ineffable horrors of child molestation and war. A co-directing effort by filmmaker Michael Palmieri and photographer and writer Donal Mosher, it follows Donal’s family in Herkimer, New York from one Halloween to the next, resulting in a beautifully crafted film remarkable for its intimacy, sensitivity and textured portrait of a family in crisis that has become all too familiar, if not representative, of America’s poor.

Who are the Moshers? Don, the emotionally remote and dry-witted head of the family, returned from Vietnam plagued by nightmares about his dead friends and admits he’s an ass who takes a hard line on foolishness. Dottie, his intrepid and eternally optimistic wife, forms the emotional glue for the family. Don’s estranged sister, Denise, is a practicing witch and a lifelong outsider who takes us to the cemetery she frequents to meet her ghost friends. Don and Dottie’s daughter, Donna, grew up too fast, picked men who beat her and gave birth to Daneal as a teen. Daneal also had a teenage pregnancy with a man who beat her and is ill-equipped to care for the toddler now that they have divorced. Donna’s youngest daughter, Desi, is a clever girl who is aware of the bad examples set by her sister and mother. She just might avoid repeating their mistakes and thereby overcome her own tragic history. As the Mosher family does their best to grapple with their lives, circumstances and decisions, we root for them—especially Desi, who holds such promise.

(FROM SILVERDOCS)