- Logline -
In a small upstate New York town, a Vietnam veteran spends his days with old rock records, Italian cooking, and his beloved granddaughter while struggling to make peace with something he did more than fifty years ago. When his best friend and only confidant dies, he is suddenly left alone with it. The forgiveness he could never ask for in life, he will only find the courage to ask for once he’s gone.
- Synopsis -
Inspired by a real photograph of a Vietnam veteran’s gravestone, CICADAS follows a man haunted by something he has spent more than fifty years trying to forget.
Gene lives a quiet life in a small American town, filling his days with old records, cinnamon rolls, lifelong friendships, and the comforting routines of a world that seems untouched by time.
But his comfort is also his shelter, and as loss begins closing in from every side, what he has kept at the edges of his life starts moving closer.
Set on a tree-lined street in upstate New York, CICADAS is a story about guilt, friendship, forgiveness, and the possibility that grace can arrive long after we believe we deserve it.
- The World -
CICADAS takes place in and around Jamestown, New York. A small town of lakes and tree-lined streets, of diners and front porches, baseball fields and church halls.
It's a world of old vinyl records, cinnamon rolls cooling on the counter, neighbors who have known each other their whole lives, and long summer evenings filled with the sound of cicadas.
A place that has stayed the same for decades, where the days move slowly and everything seems to flow the way it always has.
Jamestown was chosen deliberately. Its geography, its culture, and the rhythms of small-town life shaped the story as much as any character did. The setting was built to be part of the film's emotional DNA.
- Characters -
A widowed Vietnam veteran carrying a weight no one around him can see.
- Music & Tone -
Music runs through the heart of CICADAS. Not as a soundtrack laid over the film, but as part of how the main character holds his world together.
The film was written around the warmth and emotional honesty of artists like Van Morrison, Steely Dan, Herb Alpert and Joe Cocker. The kind of records a man like Gene would have kept and played for fifty years.
The screenplay suggests specific songs, though nothing is final. They point to a tone more than a playlist: warm, lived-in, and touched by a personal melancholy that never announces itself.
- Screenplay -
Title: CICADAS
Genre: Drama
Format: Feature Screenplay (Final Draft)
Length: 117 pages
Status: Completed (English and Portuguese versions)
WGA Registered
In the tradition of character-driven American dramas such as Manchester by the Sea, The Holdovers, and Nebraska.
- Why this story -
I came across a photo of Gene Simmers’ gravestone about five years ago. Somewhere on the internet. Ever since I read the message carved into that stone, I haven’t forgotten it. It takes a remarkable amount of courage, and an even greater amount of pain, to do what that man did.
I became curious about his story, about who he was. But I couldn’t find much. And that led me to think about something else.
In one way or another, we all carry something hidden inside us. A secret. A regret. A memory. A part of ourselves we rarely share with anyone. Something we learn to live with.
Sometimes we carry it well.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
With that idea in mind, I began writing a fictional film inspired by Gene’s gesture and the questions it left behind.
A story that, in its own way, honors that man, that moment, and the things we carry long after the world expects us to let them go.
When we were over there, they made me think of home.
Now that I’m home, they make me think of being there.
The complete screenplay is available on request.
eduardo@officesbh.com • +55 (31) 98888-2222