Paper Planes | Support the Film

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 Team

Who’s making it

Writer / Director

Mark Banning

Mark Banning received a BFA in Film Production from SUNY Purchase and has directed music videos and commercial projects. His first feature, Jellysmoke, stars Golden Globe nominee Michael Ealy and Andre Royo (HBO’s The Wire).

Jellysmoke won top honors at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2006. Embraced by the mental health community, the film earned its producers a Voice Award and a Prism Award.

Producer

Dave Flynch

Dave Flynch is committed to authentic, character-driven stories that confront social realities with honesty and emotional depth. His short film What They See, which he wrote and directed, has been submitted to film festivals and is awaiting feedback.

Dave has spent over two decades shaping the sonic landscape of film and media; his background in sound design grounds his storytelling in atmosphere, nuance, and emotional precision. He is an MFA candidate in Creative Producing at Columbia University School of the Arts.

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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