SYNOPSIS
After their grandmother's death, two sisters uncover a long-buried family secret that awakens a mysterious man in a Kangol hat, forcing them to confront generations of silence, grief, and an inheritance their family tried to erase.
In 1993, sisters Olivia and April return to their late grandmother Ma'mie's Bywater home to sort through the belongings of the woman who raised them. Hidden in the attic, they discover a jewelry box their grandmother carefully sealed away and never intended to be opened again. Inside is a photograph of a man no one in the family has ever spoken about.
For April, whose mother died giving birth to her, the discovery feels less like an accident and more like proof that her family has spent years withholding painful truths. As a summer storm settles over New Orleans, Olivia and April find themselves haunted by a figure in a Kangol hat who seems to know their grief better than they do. Drawn into a game she does not fully understand, April confronts wounds that have followed her since childhood, while Olivia is forced to witness her sister slipping toward something she cannot reach.
By morning, they leave Ma'mie's house carrying more than boxes and keepsakes. In the months that follow, Olivia comes to understand what Ma'mie spent a lifetime trying to hide: some inheritances cannot be discarded, some names cannot be forgotten, and some debts continue collecting long after those who incurred them are gone.
In partnership with Neighborhood Book Peddler, The Man in the Kangol Hat will host free community storytelling activations throughout development, including table reads, script presentations, intimate screenings, and conversations designed to share the work in progress and invite community engagement.
The project will be introduced at Milo's Garden during Neighborhood Book Peddler's Fall Programming Season, featuring selections from the novella from which the film is adapted.
Audiences can also follow Shadows of Louisiana, a companion folklore project exploring the legends, spirits, and unexplained encounters that continue to shape Louisiana's cultural memory through oral histories, historical inquiry, and firsthand accounts.
Who Owns the Flavor?
Director & Creator | Ron Stodghill
Producer(s): Ausinikka, Sten Spinella, EJ Johnson
Who Owns the Flavor? is a global 6 part documentary series that follows journalist Ron Stodghill from New Orleans to kitchens, markets, and dining rooms around the world, investigating how culture, commerce, and power shape what we eat, who profits from it, and what is lost when tradition becomes commodity.