Writer/director Cutter Hodierne, one of Director‘s 25 New Faces of 2012 and the director of the short and feature film Fishing without Netscurrently fundraising for a new movie, The shepherd, a hot UFO thriller set in the Sacred Valley of Peru. Based on a short film currently in post, and co-written with star Amiel Cayo, The shepherd tells the story of a rural shepherd in search of his missing daughter who becomes paranoid and plagued with visions following a mysterious event.

Excerpt from the press release:

The shepherd is a sci-fi thriller set in one of the most formidable, mystical and lush landscapes on the planet, the Sacred Valley of Peru. Combining an observational realism of rural life, with the sci-fi awe and wonder of a Spielerg alien encounter film, this rarely photographed landscape twists with tension and fear, as the Shepherd takes on powers much greater than himself, both human and supernatural.

Part family film with deep emotional resonance, part horror film of corporate capitalists attempting to subjugate a powerless indigenous community, The Shepherd is a magnifying glass of the centuries-long colonization of South America. The film explores what we must do to protect our family, our culture and our ancestry, all told through the mind-blowing experience of an alien encounter.

“The script is a deeply personal exploration of mortality and the emotional toll that death takes on surviving family members,” said director Cutter Hodierne. “I was first drawn to this story because of the fascinating intersection between ancient Inca culture and the high number of UFO sightings in the Andes. But diving into the development of the story, I found there was an incredibly personal depth of meaning to it, wondering if aliens were our ancestors and if their visits to our dimension were a way for us to connect with their spirits.

Antecedents of Hodierne Fishing without Nets was similarly developed from a short film, a process the writer/director further explains in the funding package attached to his WeFunder page, where he is raising $600,000 to make the film. Learn more about its process via the WeFunder page and check out the feature teaser above.