225BatonRouge.com

Good luck getting audiences to watch a film about a claims adjuster working the post-Katrina New Orleans beat and actually root for him.

But that’s exactly what happened at the Sundance film festival this year where 27-year-old LSU graduate Zack Godshall’s documentary-style drama Low and Behold screened five times. Godshall collaborated with New Orleans-based writer/actor Barlow Jacobs on the critically acclaimed film that follows a young man plunged into a world of water-damaged homes and angry residents still reeling from apocalyptic loss.

“It’s a precarious situation to be in,” says Godshall, a graduate of the UCLA film program. “Meeting strangers and telling them how much money they are going to get.”

Jacobs actually worked as an insurance adjuster in Florida after Hurricane Wilma, and some of Low and Behold’s more chaotic plot points are based on his experiences.

After casting the story’s three principal characters, Godshall, Jacobs and crew took their production to New Orleans, Houma and Church Point, Miss., to find real people affected by Katrina. It’s this mixture of scripted drama and documentary filmmaking that blurs the line between fact and fiction and keeps audiences engaged in the sometimes whirlwind, sometimes languid narrative.

Godshall recently formed Blue Point Productions with his writer/producer sister, Jana, and together they have a handful of documentaries and scripts in development.

“I’m making a documentary that’s shooting in Mississippi and Tennessee, but I want to make films here,” Godshall says. “Louisiana is the place that inspires me the most.” lowandbeholdmovie.com.