Before Ennis and Jack got together at Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming, Mark and George met in a small coastal town in North Carolina. Mark is a soft-spoken drifter hoping to save endangered Loggerhead turtles and George is a lonely motel owner. Writer-director Tim Kirkman says the gay romance is only part of the story, however. The themes of adoption rights and repressed emotions also are interwoven throughout the independent film.

Released on DVD in March 2006, Loggerheads enjoyed a limited theatrical release in 2005 preceded by film festival screenings across the country.

Kirkman says the film was inspired by the true story of what happened to his friend when she gave up her baby for adoption. She later contacted the same agency in an effort to locate the child, but in accordance with North Carolinas laws was denied any information about his whereabouts. Eventually she hired a private investigator to help her.

Each of the three interconnected stories takes place in a different year over Mothers Day weekend. I chose Mothers Day because its a volatile emotional moment for adopted kids, birth parents, and all parents really, and the events in the story are rooted in Mothers Day, Kirkman says. I think its an interesting narrative devise to have the stories take place at the same time, three years apart. Each character comes to a decision because of someone else, so it logically cant take place at the same time.

Shot entirely in North Carolina, Loggerheads is set in three different geographic areas of the state so that the locations -- Asheville, Kurie Beach, and Eden -- actually become characters within the story. The cast includes Bonnie Hunt, Kip Pardue, Tess Harper, Chris Sarandon, Michael Kelly, and Michael Learned.

Although getting top-notch actors to clear their schedules presented a challenge, Kirkman says hes the luckiest guy in the world for getting such a wonderful cast.

We finally got the perfect cast because they all responded to the script, he says. I love that these Academy Award-nominated actors came to do my little movie. Independent directors rely on these seasoned veterans to support us and tell the stories that Hollywood doesnt want to tell.

Originally Loggerheads contained only two stories: A middle-aged woman searches for the son she gave up for adoption; and an HIV-positive drifter arrives in a small coastal town to save endangered loggerhead turtles that nest there.

The film now provides three points of view for the same event. Originally I just used two viewpoints, but felt like something was missing, Kirkman says. I later added the third prong of the triad and included the story of the adoptive parents. Its a dramatic point in all of their lives.

To help him develop the story, he relied on his friends version of events and her sons journal entries. The story of the adoptive parents is important and had to be added, he says. My brother and sister are both adopted, so I was looking at something right in my own backyard, but it wasnt exactly in my own backyard.

Beautifully shot and sensitively portrayed, Loggerheads is part love story, part family drama, and part tragedy. Watch it with an open mind...and a box of tissues.

Copyright 2006 Leslie Halpern