A short film · New York

Paper Planes

What happens when faith isn’t enough?

Written & directed by Mark Banning  •  Produced by Dave Flynch

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The Logline
After his beloved uncle is brutally attacked and left in a coma, a young boy’s faith is shaken when he confronts a troubling truth about God, forcing him to grapple with grief, doubt, and the meaning of evil.
The Story

A boy, his uncle, and one impossible question

Ten-year-old Lee has gone to church with his parents every Sunday for as long as he can remember. His world is simple and good: weekends at the arcade with his Uncle Isaac, icees on the walk home, and afternoons on the boardwalk folding paper planes, testing designs, chasing longer and longer flights.

Then Isaac is robbed at a gas station and beaten into a coma. Lee’s family gathers at the hospital. They pray. They wait. And one evening, while his mother cooks dinner, Lee stumbles across a single verse of scripture that turns his understanding of the world upside down.

The adults around him reach for the answers they were given. Lee needs more. Told entirely through his eyes, Paper Planes follows a child working through grief, doubt, and love, and finding his own way back to something like peace.

We don’t explain the world. We experience the confusion with him.
  • The camera lives at Lee’s eye level
  • Adults are partially framed, obscured, overheard
  • Memory plays in warmth; the present in stillness
  • One paper plane carries the whole story home
Why This Story, Why Now

Faith, grief, and the questions we inherit

A missing perspective

Stories about faith often overlook the specific role the church plays in Black communities: a place of refuge, identity, and belonging. Paper Planes is rooted in that world.

Doubt born of love

Lee’s questioning doesn’t come from rebellion. It comes from grief and lived experience, which makes it honest, tender, and impossible to dismiss.

A generational moment

Younger generations are re-examining the belief systems they inherited. This film captures the very first instant that reckoning begins, in the heart of a child.

The first time faith stops being enough
The Look & Feel

In conversation with films we love

A New York childhood rendered with warmth and interiority, anchored in one boy’s perception from the first frame to the last.

Moonlight

Childhood interiority and environment

If Beale Street Could Talk

Warmth, intimacy, Black love

Crooklyn

Brooklyn childhood perspective

The Creative Team

The people behind the story

Paper Planes reunites three filmmakers who collaborated on the award-winning feature Jellysmoke (2005). Their shared filmmaking history, recognized credits, and complementary expertise bring an established creative partnership to this new production.

Portrait of Mark Banning
Writer / Director

Mark Banning

Writer and director of Jellysmoke, honored at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival and nominated for a 2006 Independent Spirit Award. Mark brings a character-driven perspective to Paper Planes.

Portrait of Cliff Charles
Director of Photography

Cliff Charles

Two-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer with credits including Spike Lee's HBO documentaries When the Levees Broke and If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise.

Portrait of Dave Flynch
Producer

Dave Flynch

More than 20 years in film and television, with credits including Nanny, Harriet, The Irishman, Ocean's Eight, Extrapolations, and Wormwood.

A creative collaboration renewed: the team builds on its shared work on Jellysmoke to tell Lee's story with intimacy, humanity, and emotional authenticity.
The Pitch Deck

See the film before it exists

The full pitch deck — logline, visual approach, comps, and the team behind it.

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View Our Pitch Deck (PDF)
Where Your Support Goes

Every dollar on the screen

We’re building this film with a small, professional crew shooting on location across New York. Here’s how contributions will be put to work:

Cast & crew
35%
Locations & permits
20%
Camera, lighting & sound
20%
Post-production
15%
Festivals & distribution
10%

Budget allocation shown is illustrative and will be updated with the final production budget.

Support the Film

Join the flight crew

Independent films like this one get made because people believe in them early. Every contribution, at every level, moves us closer to production — and every supporter is credited by name on the finished film.

$25
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Stealth

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Help this one fly

A paper plane only works when someone lets it go. Your support sends this story into the world: a film about love, loss, and the first big question a child ever asks.

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