Reel South

Growing up in rural South Carolina, celebrated American garden designer Ryan Gainey developed a love of plants at an early age. After moving to Atlanta in the 1970s, Ryan began designing gardens in affluent neighborhoods and around the world. A contradictory character, offensive and tender, artificial yet truly authentic, Ryan was known for his love of beauty and the ability to create it.

After 25 years of living in the United States, Guatemalan grandmother Juana Ortega is threatened with deportation and soon takes sanctuary in a small North Carolina church. As time passes, and state lawmakers continue to ignore the family's pleas for a stay on her deportation, Juana's spirits slowly sink. And yet, Juana is patient that in God's house, God will answer her prayers.

In a fading Georgia town, a community recalls its dark past and faces a grim present. An undocumented immigrant, caught in legal limbo and facing deportation, contemplates his future. In the midst of it all, a massive, private immigration prison generates millions in profits. Where these stories meet, the hidden epicenter of America's immigration crackdown is revealed-a place called Lumpkin, GA.

A successful fashion designer who gave up her big-city career, Ingrid Gipson discovered a reclusive life of solitude and unhindered creativity in Arkansas' rural Ouachita Mountains. As if through poetry, she opens up her world again to those of us willing to listen.

Captain Chris Scott rallies a colony of tent residents to defend their provisional homes against the forces of gentrification. As development encroaches on the community, the tragedies and personal experiences of a displaced community resurface among those clinging to their last remnant of stability.

In 1952, gravedigger by day and bluesman by night Henry 'Gip' Gipson opened a ramshackle backyard juke joint in Alabama. Once scattered across the rural South, juke joints have become relics of the past. In the Spring of 2013, Gip's Place, the last juke joint in Alabama, was raided and ordered to shut down. Gip follows the battle to keep the blues alive.

Filmed and Directed by: Patrick Sheehan.