Two filmmakers drawn together by outrage embark on road trip to document stories of people affected by the largest migration in US history — hundreds of thousands displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Three months after the storm, the filmmakers travel for sixty days, from North to South, to speak with evacuees struggling with loss of home, family, jobs, community and culture. A compelling and penetrating story unfolds of an American Diaspora and the powerful resilience of the human spirit. As the filmmakers are challenged to grapple with their role in the face of such a disaster, they serve as mirrors for the entire nation — challenging us to ask tougher questions, namely: what is the present day responsibility of citizen and government in this historic story of race and class oppression that culminated in the events of Hurricane Katrina? THE AXE IN THE ATTIC was conceived from the very beginning as both a dynamic film within itself and as a valuable educational tool in community activism and advocacy for social justice.

The title of THE AXE IN THE ATTIC comes from an oft-repeated story about the evacuees' experiences from the floods of Hurricane Betsy (1965). In order to keep from drowning in your home, you have to keep an axe in your attic to break through the roof. This serves as a metaphor for the many poor people who are left to fend for themselves. As one evacuee shakes her head: "Same old levee." Another exclaims: "We are repeating history."

"One of the most challenging and unsettling American films of the year."

 — Livia Bloom, Cinema Scope Magazine

"Captures with grace and dignity, and respect of the souls of the people who called New Orleans home and the terrible betrayal they endured and endure still."  

— Kimberlyn Leary, Ph.D., Psychology in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

“THE AXE IN THE ATTIC is inspiring filmmaking.  Ed Pincus and Lucia Small exhibit deep humanity and personal courage in making this film, which deftly balances depictions of victims of Hurricane Katrina with a presentation of the filmmakers' struggles to tell these victims' stories.

- Ross McElwee, Filmmaker (BRIGHT LEAVES • SHERMAN’S MARCH)

 "This film is not about its directors. It's about the annihilation of arguably one of the last vital American communities -- one peopled with generations of survivors reaching back to slavery -- and the lack of a satisfactory U.S. response to that demise."   

— Lisa Rosman, The Reeler                                                                    

The focus of the film is on the story of people uprooted and displaced — the Diaspora of Hurricane Katrina. What does it mean to be exiled in one's own country with a government that is conspicuously absent? THE AXE IN THE ATTIC creates an intimate yet expansive story by interweaving a diverse range of personal stories of over 50 people displaced across Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Western Kentucky, Northern Alabama, Mississippi, Austin, and Greater New Orleans. Along with an immersion in the diverse American landscape in which the evacuees find themselves, the film reproduces the raw feelings and weight that such a disaster has on people's daily lives.

The first ten minutes of the film give early indication of the jarring and often contradictory realities the filmmakers encounter throughout the film.  The first stop visits a surprisingly upbeat family starting over in the wintry hills of suburban Pittsburgh. After meeting with a single mother and her teenagers in the outskirts of Cincinnati, the filmmakers reveal their own dilemmas about their role: Are they here to witness and document, or should they be doing more? Tensions build as the journey progresses into the heart of the hurricane zone. DVD Chapter 3 is when a heated and gripping scene unfolds in remote Northern Alabama, at Joe Wheeler State Park. Several evacuees from the Gulf Coast are living full-time in cramped FEMA campers. They stand around the campfire, a group of disullisioned and despondent evacuees, discussing and challenging both the government and the filmmakers about class and racial stereotypes, accountability and responsibility.  DVD Chapter 5 marks the visually shocking first visit to the Lower Ninth where a landlord discusses how this side of the city's levees has a long history of neglect and conflict. DVD Chapter 10 begins with powerful home movies of the flood, transporting us into the lives of over 30 family members who have been displaced from the largest public housing project in New Orleans to Austin, Texas where they struggle through a maze of FEMA-sponsored bureaucracy.

From its original conception, THE AXE IN THE ATTIC was meant to challenge the notion of privilege while raising questions about government and citizen accountability. Given such monumental and critical national crisis, we understood our insertion in the film as two white northerners was a controversial approach. It would risk making some viewers uncomfortable, but the idea was to break the protective wall of the camera, to put the viewer in our shoes, and have them ask along with us some of the tougher questions about the ethics of the situation as well as those of documentary filmmaking itself.   We wanted the viewers to understand on a visceral level what happens when a trust is broken between a government and its people. We also conceived that this approach would lend itself to the film being used in public forums and political house parties to help ignite honest and practical discussions about taking action.