Southern Circuit - Zack Godshall

Southern Circuit - Tour of Independent Filmmakers

After earning an MFA in Film from UCLA, Zachary Godshall premiered his first feature, Low and Behold, at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. A fictional film that includes documentary footage to tell a story in post-Katrina New Orleans, Low and Behold garnered numerous awards at festivals around the US. Currently, Godshall lives in his native south Louisiana, where he teaches Film and Screenwriting at Louisiana State University. While finishing God's Architects, Godshall was awarded an Artist Fellowship by the Louisiana Division of the Arts and named to the Southern Artistry Register. Godshall is also presently writing a screenplay adaptation of the soon to be published novel by the award-winning writer David Madden. God's Architects is Godshall’s first documentary and his second feature film. God's Architects tells the stories of five visionary builders and their enigmatic creations. With neither funding nor blueprints, these builders, unbeknownst to one another, dedicate their entire lives to creating architectural worlds and realms that for most of us exist only in the wilds of the imagination. In the fall of 2005, filmmaker Zack Godshall set out with a camera, tripod and microphone to interview and document the work of Floyd Banks, Jr., a divinely inspired castle-builder living in the east Tennessee hill country. Three and a half years later, Godshall completed a feature-length film that both examines and celebrates the work of Banks along with four other solitary builders who have constructed similar monuments. Beyond the builders and their work, the film indirectly functions as a personal essay that explores the nature of inspiration and one's dedication to a creative project, no matter how absurd or mysterious the circumstances may seem. God's Architects features builders from Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.