The Lies They Told

In rural 1930s Virginia, Lena Conti, a young immigrant mother, fights to protect her dignity and loved ones as America's eugenics movement gains support. When she witnesses immigrant families forcibly separated at Ellis Island, she is determined to keep her two-year-old daughter. However, the inspection process separates her from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported to Germany. Alone but determined to build a better life, Lena is brought by a family relative, Silas Wolfe, to his cabin in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the landscape reminds her of her homeland, she struggles to adjust. She discovers the children have been taught to hide when the sheriff arrives, and learns that the State of Virginia is working to paint the community as ignorant, immoral, and backwards in order to evict them from their land, seize children, and eliminate those with "inferior genes." When a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her fears materialize. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena faces impossible choices as she seeks to reunite with her daughter and protect the people and land she has come to love.