Pineys
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Film Feature
LGBTQ, Adventure
Ten years ago, Avery left rural New Jersey and never looked back. On the night of his high school reunion, Avery's attempt to reconnect is upended by a supernatural monster. With his reality at stake, Avery and his former best friend confront the lives they've chosen - and what they've left behind.
Pineys
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Film Feature
LGBTQ, Adventure
Green Light
This campaign raised $2,475 for development. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
55 supporters | followers
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Ten years ago, Avery left rural New Jersey and never looked back. On the night of his high school reunion, Avery's attempt to reconnect is upended by a supernatural monster. With his reality at stake, Avery and his former best friend confront the lives they've chosen - and what they've left behind.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Have you ever wished your life was different?
When Avery Bozarth, a trans man living in a big city, receives an invitation to his ten-year high school reunion in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, he's conflicted. Though he hasn't returned since he transitioned, the pines have always felt like a part of him. With some encouragement, he finally decides to reconnect with his hometown as the man he's become.
Or not. On the night of the reunion, Avery's classmates are decidedly not normal about his transition. The only exception seems to be June, Avery's childhood best friend, who stayed in town after high school and now works as a park ranger. No, June couldn't care less what Avery's gender is. She's just bitter that he left her behind.
As if being at each other's necks wasn't bad enough, a shadowy monster starts hunting Avery and June, weaving a supernatural web around both of their lives. As memories waver and reality breaks down, Avery and June face ATV-riding teens, a centuries-old legend, and each other as they find out what might have been if their lives had turned out differently - and what they might have lost along the way.
Built on the allegory of the Jersey Devil—an unwanted child cursed to haunt its former home—and set against the unique, endangered landscape of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Pineys is a horror-tinged, theatrical drama about the quiet alienation of growing up queer and trans in a small town.
The Pine(y)s
Stretching across more than one million acres in the southern half of the country's most densely populated state, the Pine Barrens are home to great blue herons, bald eagles, carnivorous pitcher plants, and rare tree frogs. Standing in the pines, with sugar sand under your feet, you can't help but feel its magic: the same magic that birthed the Jersey Devil. Yet this jewel nestled within the DC-Boston megalopolis is threatened by climate change, manmade environmental hazards, and encroaching development, including a gas pipeline that now sits atop one of the country’s purest natural sources of water. Now the largest remaining stretch of a unique ecosystem that once sprawled up and down the East Coast, the Pine Barrens are in danger of disappearing altogether.
At the same time, trans lives in America are under threat: from executive orders denying us healthcare and restricting our freedom of movement to a culture of transphobia that incites violence and death. At once a love letter and a call to empathy, Pineys connects the environment of the Pine Barrens to Avery’s sense of displacement as a trans man.
As the film examines the complex relationships between place, origin, and identity, Pineys puts a little-understood region in conversation with the people who, growing up there, feel little-understood themselves.
The Devil
Before the highway cut through the pines, a woman gave birth to a monster. The Jersey Devil was born with the head of a goat, the wings of a bat, and the tail of a serpent. Now it haunts the Pine Barrens as an outcast, terrorizing the locals and carrying off the occasional sheep. Nobody stopped to wonder whether it likes being that way.
Centuries later, I was raised in those same forests. Like the Jersey Devil, I was different: too different to find my future in those tiny towns, hemmed in by a culture that preferred to leave queerness unspoken and unacknowledged. So I left - and after a decade spent coming into myself as a trans man, I, too, returned to haunt the pines.
Pineys is about that return. Featuring theatrical visuals, puppetry, and surreal alternate-reality sequences, this is equal parts Sinners and I Saw the TV Glow.
Tying trans identity to themes of monstrosity and folklore, Pineys asks what it means to reconnect with a home you no longer recognize - and which no longer recognizes you.
The Campaign
Funds raised through this campaign will go toward production of a teaser reel demonstrating the setting, themes, and visual style of Pineys, with the Jersey Devil - a seven-foot-tall puppet grown from the forest itself - as a centerpiece. Production will take place in August 2025, with the teaser set to be completed in the fall. With this in hand, we will be well-positioned to raise the full funds for production of the feature-length project.
The teaser will cost approximately $6,000 to complete. In March 2025, we were fortunate to be awarded a grant of $2,000 from Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. We plan to self-fund another third of the total cost; this campaign's goal is to raise the remaining funds. That's where you come in!
The money generously donated to this campaign will go towards making sure our crew is paid and fed, our sets are lit, and everyone has what they need to bring Pineys to life for the first time.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast and Crew Payroll
Costs $1,000
If we don't pay the Jersey Devil a fair wage, he'll get angry...and you don't want to see him angry.
Craft Services
Costs $500
Even the Jersey Devil needs to eat!
Equipment and Insurance
Costs $500
All the lights and gear that go into making the pines look as magical on-screen as they feel in real life!
Platform and Card Fees
Costs $200
Crowdfunding ain't cheap!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Taylor Cody Beck
Writer-Director
Taylor Cody Beck is a transsexual jock, recovering horse girl, and independent filmmaker. Raised in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, Cody began his film career while attending Northwestern University, where two of his screenplays (The Helsings and Vanishing Act) were produced on-campus as feature films; a third screenplay, an early draft of Pineys, was awarded the first-place undergraduate Krevoy Screenwriting Fund Prize in 2018. His first independent short, Chrysalis, premiered at the 2023 LA Horror Film Festival. As a writer-director, Cody specializes in visually distinctive, supernaturally tinged stories about trans identity, queer communities, and masculinity. Cody’s upcoming projects include His Kingdom Endures, an experimental fable about gender roles within trans-for-trans relationships; and We Need More S.A.F.E. Spaces for Women!, a narrative short about werewolves and the extremely online cults that hunt them. Cody’s fiction and poetry has appeared in Trans Fag Quarterly and T4T magazine, and is upcoming in Lilac Peril and smoke and mold. Cody lives in Philadelphia with his cat, Taz; a growing collection of animal skulls; and two out-of-order VCRs.
Shayna Davis
Producer
Shayna Davis is an independent filmmaker based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally hailing from Kentucky and North Carolina, she came up to Philly to attend Drexel University's Film + Video program, from which she graduated in 2021. Since then, she has written and directed numerous short films, including Hot Wheelz, which has been shown at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival, and The Women's Film Festival. She also had the privilege of producing her first feature film, You Know What You Are, which makes its premiere this year at the Portland Horror Film Festival! She is very excited to embark on her second feature film adventure with Pineys. When she's not on the filmmaking grind, Shayna is a Staff Writer and Media Maven for MovieJawn magazine, where she reviews current releases, waxes poetic about everything spooky and femme in film, and makes fun social media videos for your consumption.
Rick Cook
Director of Photography
Rick Cook is a cinematographer based in Philadelphia with 15 years of freelance experience. His work is inspired by the world and city he lives in lending itself to intimate coverage and naturally motivated lighting. Rick has shot numerous short films, music videos, and documentaries, as well as his feature film debut in 2018. Rick's most recent short film Marina, starring Grace McLean and Succession's Peter Friedman, received The Gotham Award and distribution through Focus Features. His previous short film Parrot won the Grand Prize - Alternative Spirit Award at the Academy Award-qualifying Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Claire Bronchick
Puppet Designer
Claire Bronchick (they/them) is a puppeteer/actor/costumer/whatever-you-needer currently based in Philadelphia, PA. They are a core member of All The Saints Theatre Company, which runs the annual Richmond Halloween Parade and recently was invited to Missouri University to construct and instruct puppetry for the premiere of Xiomara Cornejo’s Romero. In 2023, they were an apprentice at Bread and Puppet in Vermont. Claire is so thrilled to work with Cody Beck again, and hope you support this wonderful project.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Have you ever wished your life was different?
When Avery Bozarth, a trans man living in a big city, receives an invitation to his ten-year high school reunion in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, he's conflicted. Though he hasn't returned since he transitioned, the pines have always felt like a part of him. With some encouragement, he finally decides to reconnect with his hometown as the man he's become.
Or not. On the night of the reunion, Avery's classmates are decidedly not normal about his transition. The only exception seems to be June, Avery's childhood best friend, who stayed in town after high school and now works as a park ranger. No, June couldn't care less what Avery's gender is. She's just bitter that he left her behind.
As if being at each other's necks wasn't bad enough, a shadowy monster starts hunting Avery and June, weaving a supernatural web around both of their lives. As memories waver and reality breaks down, Avery and June face ATV-riding teens, a centuries-old legend, and each other as they find out what might have been if their lives had turned out differently - and what they might have lost along the way.
Built on the allegory of the Jersey Devil—an unwanted child cursed to haunt its former home—and set against the unique, endangered landscape of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Pineys is a horror-tinged, theatrical drama about the quiet alienation of growing up queer and trans in a small town.
The Pine(y)s
Stretching across more than one million acres in the southern half of the country's most densely populated state, the Pine Barrens are home to great blue herons, bald eagles, carnivorous pitcher plants, and rare tree frogs. Standing in the pines, with sugar sand under your feet, you can't help but feel its magic: the same magic that birthed the Jersey Devil. Yet this jewel nestled within the DC-Boston megalopolis is threatened by climate change, manmade environmental hazards, and encroaching development, including a gas pipeline that now sits atop one of the country’s purest natural sources of water. Now the largest remaining stretch of a unique ecosystem that once sprawled up and down the East Coast, the Pine Barrens are in danger of disappearing altogether.
At the same time, trans lives in America are under threat: from executive orders denying us healthcare and restricting our freedom of movement to a culture of transphobia that incites violence and death. At once a love letter and a call to empathy, Pineys connects the environment of the Pine Barrens to Avery’s sense of displacement as a trans man.
As the film examines the complex relationships between place, origin, and identity, Pineys puts a little-understood region in conversation with the people who, growing up there, feel little-understood themselves.
The Devil
Before the highway cut through the pines, a woman gave birth to a monster. The Jersey Devil was born with the head of a goat, the wings of a bat, and the tail of a serpent. Now it haunts the Pine Barrens as an outcast, terrorizing the locals and carrying off the occasional sheep. Nobody stopped to wonder whether it likes being that way.
Centuries later, I was raised in those same forests. Like the Jersey Devil, I was different: too different to find my future in those tiny towns, hemmed in by a culture that preferred to leave queerness unspoken and unacknowledged. So I left - and after a decade spent coming into myself as a trans man, I, too, returned to haunt the pines.
Pineys is about that return. Featuring theatrical visuals, puppetry, and surreal alternate-reality sequences, this is equal parts Sinners and I Saw the TV Glow.
Tying trans identity to themes of monstrosity and folklore, Pineys asks what it means to reconnect with a home you no longer recognize - and which no longer recognizes you.
The Campaign
Funds raised through this campaign will go toward production of a teaser reel demonstrating the setting, themes, and visual style of Pineys, with the Jersey Devil - a seven-foot-tall puppet grown from the forest itself - as a centerpiece. Production will take place in August 2025, with the teaser set to be completed in the fall. With this in hand, we will be well-positioned to raise the full funds for production of the feature-length project.
The teaser will cost approximately $6,000 to complete. In March 2025, we were fortunate to be awarded a grant of $2,000 from Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. We plan to self-fund another third of the total cost; this campaign's goal is to raise the remaining funds. That's where you come in!
The money generously donated to this campaign will go towards making sure our crew is paid and fed, our sets are lit, and everyone has what they need to bring Pineys to life for the first time.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast and Crew Payroll
Costs $1,000
If we don't pay the Jersey Devil a fair wage, he'll get angry...and you don't want to see him angry.
Craft Services
Costs $500
Even the Jersey Devil needs to eat!
Equipment and Insurance
Costs $500
All the lights and gear that go into making the pines look as magical on-screen as they feel in real life!
Platform and Card Fees
Costs $200
Crowdfunding ain't cheap!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Taylor Cody Beck
Writer-Director
Taylor Cody Beck is a transsexual jock, recovering horse girl, and independent filmmaker. Raised in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, Cody began his film career while attending Northwestern University, where two of his screenplays (The Helsings and Vanishing Act) were produced on-campus as feature films; a third screenplay, an early draft of Pineys, was awarded the first-place undergraduate Krevoy Screenwriting Fund Prize in 2018. His first independent short, Chrysalis, premiered at the 2023 LA Horror Film Festival. As a writer-director, Cody specializes in visually distinctive, supernaturally tinged stories about trans identity, queer communities, and masculinity. Cody’s upcoming projects include His Kingdom Endures, an experimental fable about gender roles within trans-for-trans relationships; and We Need More S.A.F.E. Spaces for Women!, a narrative short about werewolves and the extremely online cults that hunt them. Cody’s fiction and poetry has appeared in Trans Fag Quarterly and T4T magazine, and is upcoming in Lilac Peril and smoke and mold. Cody lives in Philadelphia with his cat, Taz; a growing collection of animal skulls; and two out-of-order VCRs.
Shayna Davis
Producer
Shayna Davis is an independent filmmaker based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally hailing from Kentucky and North Carolina, she came up to Philly to attend Drexel University's Film + Video program, from which she graduated in 2021. Since then, she has written and directed numerous short films, including Hot Wheelz, which has been shown at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival, and The Women's Film Festival. She also had the privilege of producing her first feature film, You Know What You Are, which makes its premiere this year at the Portland Horror Film Festival! She is very excited to embark on her second feature film adventure with Pineys. When she's not on the filmmaking grind, Shayna is a Staff Writer and Media Maven for MovieJawn magazine, where she reviews current releases, waxes poetic about everything spooky and femme in film, and makes fun social media videos for your consumption.
Rick Cook
Director of Photography
Rick Cook is a cinematographer based in Philadelphia with 15 years of freelance experience. His work is inspired by the world and city he lives in lending itself to intimate coverage and naturally motivated lighting. Rick has shot numerous short films, music videos, and documentaries, as well as his feature film debut in 2018. Rick's most recent short film Marina, starring Grace McLean and Succession's Peter Friedman, received The Gotham Award and distribution through Focus Features. His previous short film Parrot won the Grand Prize - Alternative Spirit Award at the Academy Award-qualifying Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Claire Bronchick
Puppet Designer
Claire Bronchick (they/them) is a puppeteer/actor/costumer/whatever-you-needer currently based in Philadelphia, PA. They are a core member of All The Saints Theatre Company, which runs the annual Richmond Halloween Parade and recently was invited to Missouri University to construct and instruct puppetry for the premiere of Xiomara Cornejo’s Romero. In 2023, they were an apprentice at Bread and Puppet in Vermont. Claire is so thrilled to work with Cody Beck again, and hope you support this wonderful project.