Question?
What if Africans migrated and populated the American South, eliminating the history of slavery from its past?
PALUS is a 6-episode series based in a reimagined South Louisiana where this version of history is true. Through these episodes we explore a surreal south where the gods, whose names and roles have evolved over the 500 years in America, walk amongst the humans. Each story explores how these characters relate to the world around them and the ways their ancestry rings into the present.
Palus. To know it is to be consumed by it. This is a collection of tales of those who tried not to be.
Purloin
to take dishonestly; steal; filch; pilfer
-The Jakes are a product of their environment. Hardened by poverty and a lineage of hardened individuals, their first thought is take. The second is how much? After a robbery, The Jakes find themselves on the lamb in Palus, avoiding the repercussions of their actions.
Honne
-what one actually believes and what one pretends to believe, respectively
Mahalia finds comfort in her phone conversations with her childhood friend Ara as she tries to find her place in Palus after moving away as a child. A strange presence stalks her as she tries to plant her spiritual roots.
PTSD: The Paiduetic Tacenda Suffocating Dezrian
-paiduetic- the art of teaching // tecenda- Things that are best left unsaid.
-Dezrian attempts to progress his life in the slums, but his ties to his friends, The Jake's, keeps pulling him to darkness. The
memory of his mother haunts him, showing herself to guide him back to his path. The Paiduetic Tacenda Suffocating Dezrian addresses the trauma that our past can impose onto our present.
Knavish
-dishonest Or unscrupulous
N’Tessa isn't impressed with her date, his chest inflated with ego. She pops his balloon before he can notice the needle. His blood drains into the tub as she proceeds with the grizzly work she hears the familiar click of the deadbolt. Damn. The Realtor's here.
Knavish explores the darker side of one of Palus's religious sects.
Enervated
-drained of energy or vitality
K'ron and Ara are coming into Palus for a night to visit her friend Mahalia. The trip begins with a bad omen, Ara's phone breaking. The only thing it says through the cracked flashing screen is “GPS SIGNAL LOST”
Their night goes askew after a brief encounter with a priestess thins the veil of between this world and the next. They spend the night under the full moon, Lost in Palus.
Orenda
-extraordinary invisible power believed by the Iroquois Indians to pervade in varying degrees all animate and inanimate natural objects as a transmissible spiritual energy capable of being exerted according to the will of its possessor.
Omri is a Passenger, meaning he can create passageways through any portal. Most Passengers are adopted and raised by ORBIT, a government agency to help hone their powers, but Omri has evaded that fate for all 24 of his years. The day of his best friend's wedding looks like the day that that fate will shift after being pulled towards an Amp. With the Amp around, Omri’s powers go haywire right when ORBIT is on his tail.
