Project Overview
Set in an Old West reenactment town in Montana, Living History tells the story of two wildly different but connected attempts to travel back in time. A filmmaker’s search to learn about the father he never knew leads him to a town living in the past.
Living History is a fiscally sponsored project of the Allied Arts Foundation. If you'd prefer to donate by check, please make check payable to "Allied Arts Foundation" and indicate "Living History" in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to:
Allied Arts Foundation Care of Media Law Group Inc.
999 N Northlake Way Suite 207
Seattle, WA 98103
Director's Statement
I never knew my dad, Andrew, who died when I was a baby. I grew up collecting stories, letters, photographs, videos, anything that might provide insight into the person he was.
My search brought me to Virginia City, a town frozen in the 19th century, where my dad lived when he was my age. I was looking for the same thing that half a million tourists seek in town each summer: a way to experience the past.
In this town, I could drink at the same saloon where my dad drank in the 1970s, have dinner at the restaurant where he’d worked, and play basketball on the same court, knowing that nothing in this place had changed since he was here. Thrilled by this newfound feeling of closeness toward my dad, I began spending more and more time in town.
As I grew closer to Virginia City’s 200 residents, I realized that many of them were dealing with similar feelings of loss and a struggle to move forward. In the face of rapid cultural change and gentrification in southwestern Montana, here was a community grappling with the difficulty of holding on to its traditions in the 21st century.
In 2023, I set out with my friend Will to document these parallel attempts to live in the past. We began working on a film that interweaves my search for my father with Virginia City’s fight against change. With the help of a filmmaking grant from the state of Montana, we spent the past two summers filming with reenactors, local historians, activists, ghost hunters, and hoarders.
Our goal was simple: use narrative storytelling to explore the connection between loss and nostalgia. While this story is personal and specific, we believe that its mission is more important than ever as America debates whether its future should look like its past.
Our next step is hiring an experienced editor who will work us to distill the nearly 300 hours of footage we’ve shot into a 75-minute feature documentary. In the coming months, we’ll also hire a sound mixer, colorist, composer, and post supervisor. When the film is done — we’re aiming for the Sundance submission deadline in August 2025 – we’ll license music and put together a marketing plan that ensures Living History reaches the widest audience possible.
We need your help to finish this movie. Your tax-deductible contribution will allow us to move forward with post-production and bring this story to audiences around the country. We are so grateful for you support, and can’t wait to share the completed film with you.
- Andrew Price, Co-Director
About Us
Andrew Price (Director):
Andrew graduated from Harvard in 2022 with a BA in History & Literature. He wrote his thesis on historical commemoration in Virginia City; that thesis, which was awarded Highest Honors, was based on three months of archival research conducted in Virginia City, Helena, Butte, and Bozeman. Earlier this year Andrew produced a documentary short for Amazon’s AAPI Heritage Heroes series (forthcoming).
Will Foulkes (Director):
Will graduated from Harvard in 2022 with a BA in Art, Film, & Visual Studies, with a focus on documentary filmmaking. He directed a number of short documentary films during his time in school. After graduating, Will moved to New York City, where he worked on a wide range of film sets. This is his first feature-length project.
Sabrina Lee (Producer):
Sabrina Lee is a veteran documentary filmmaker. She has directed and produced a number of feature documentaries in Montana, including Where You From and Not Yet Begun to Fight. In addition to working as a story consultant on numerous projects, Sabrina co-produced/wrote the Montana PBS documentary Ivan Doig: Landscapes of a Western Mind, distributed nationally through American Public Television.
Michael Bloom (Producer):
Michael Bloom is a Brooklyn based producer who works primarily in documentary filmmaking. He is also a lead producer on a modern-silent film initiative supported by Isabella Rossellini.