Full disclosure: I co-directed this film, so I might be biased!

Linefork is an immersive observational documentary centered on Opal Sexton and Lee Sexton of Linefork, Kentucky. They are the only named people in the film. We balanced the film to focus on their relationship, their community, and the ways they spend time together and apart. This approach led us to limit the number of characters. Lee, who passed in 2021, was a legendary old-time banjo player.

There are many shots of Opal alone, working and relaxing, and she is foregrounded in many scenes with Lee. Specific to the test, in one scene Opal speaks with another woman while sitting at a table about many topics, none of them men. In another scene, Opal speaks on the phone with another woman for an extended time, focusing on gardening, cooking, and a few other topics, only momentarily mentioning men. Audiences and critics have remarked on her presence in the film.

From the IMDB synopsis:
Extraordinary access to Lee and Opal's daily lives mark this project as unique among biographical music documentaries, particularly those featuring traditional musicians. In Linefork, Lee's music is situated within the conditions of life and particularities of place. Lee and Opal's quiet dignity and sincerity emerge as we witness their quotidian experiences, routines, and pastimes: their shared farm work, Opal's canning and word games, Lee's playing and teaching, their visits to doctors and trips to the senior center. Implicit are the issues so many face: financial insecurity, access to adequate health care, the difficulties of aging, the ability to remain in one's home, to care for one's spouse.

Lee and Opal will likely strike most film audiences as simultaneously foreign and familiar, yet over the course of the film, any sense of otherness gives way to a palpable universality. Linefork is a quiet meditation on the endurance and fragility of a regional American music and the vitality of the human condition with its varied tensions and complexities.