09/10/2026
Heya friends â Michael here, and itâs been a while since I shared an update with yâall about Where the Mountains Sing, so I figured itâs long overdue. First, thanks to you we raised almost $6,000 for some great Appalachian charities with our auction! Thatâs amazing, and weâre honored to give to Americans Helping Americans, Mountain Ways, and more.
Weâre working hard on editing the movie and boy does it look pretty so far. Weâre also finalizing our broadcast partner (we have excellent options), release date (hint: it will likely coincide with some other exciting LCMF news), and more. Things are busy but great, and we canât wait to share more news and some movie clips with you soon.
In the meantime, we have some fun ways for you to get involved:
First: We want to feature everyone possible in the movie, but weâre going to run out of screen time, so we have something special planned for the closing credits that needs yâalls help. If youâre interested, we want a picture of you â any picture, from any year of LCMF. Just send it to [email protected] and as long as itâs clean and of good quality, youâll see yourself on the screen! Youâll also see a bunch of surprise guests in those same credits, as some of the artists have sent us photos of them as fans at LCMF too!
Second: Do you have any big, beautiful, epic photos of the venue (full, empty, day, night, etc.)? Or just magical iconic pictures that capture the essence of LCMF? If so, and if youâre inclined to share, send them to the same address ([email protected]) and some might make it onto the official movie poster, which will be released this month! If we use your picture weâll include you in the credits and send you a copy of the poster once itâs ready.
Third: Editing this movie makes it really clear that this is much more than a âmusic festival movieâ â itâs an amazing educational tool too, that can help dispel some of the salacious internet nonsense about âthe troubles of Appalachiaâ. Like weâve said from go, this movie wonât sanitize the truth, but it will shine a big bright light on all thatâs great and beautiful in the region. This movie isnât just a love letter to Laurel Cove â although itâs definitely that too â itâs also going to take on a lot of the B.S. that âinfluencersâ post about the region.
Because of that, we really want to make the PBS / classroom version of this movie and the educational materials necessary, so weâre going to ratchet up the Educational Giving Campaign to help get that piece funded.
Hereâs the fun part: Perhaps youâve seen some LCMF alums wearing the amazing festival belt buckle? Wyatt Flores never takes his off, and now you can win one too. Every donation to the Educational Campaign is an entry into a lottery for one of these prized limited edition belt buckles. You can donate anything at all â literally, $1 gets you in â and weâll randomly draw a winner in October. Every dollar = an entry. Every share of this post gets you an extra entry. And if your share gets the most engagement â so tag a band, a very-online friend, whomever â itâs a 20 entry bonus! As youâll see, there are also other fun benefits for different donation tiers â all the way up to being a producer of the movie, walking the red carpet, and more!
Hereâs the link to donate and enter: https://givebutter.com/where-the-mountains-sing-educational-outreach-crowdfunding-wtix1r
Thatâs all from here for now. Weâll do better with more frequent updates as things get closer, but know that weâre working hard to make a movie that yâall will be proud of and that will really showcase the beauty, talent, community, and spirit of Appalachia, Kentucky, and, of course, the Laurel Cove Music Festival.
Appreciate yâall more than we can express and we thank you for your support!
Sincerely yours,
Michael
