The Story
Some journeys begin at the end of the world.
Jack Keating is a beloved pastor and bestselling author whose book All In inspired millions. He's about to launch a national book tour — but he and his wife Emily are killed in a devastating car accident before the first stop. Their three children — fierce Maddy (15), heartbroken Eric (12), and irrepressible Astrid (7) — are left in the care of someone none of them expected: Jack's reclusive sister, Eva.
Eva is a brilliant, complicated author who lives inside her own imagination. She hasn't spoken to her brother in years. She doesn't know these kids. She doesn't want this. But Astrid — seven years old and refusing to let go of her father's stories — demands they finish what Jack started. The last stop on his book tour was Eva's own bookstore in Seattle. And so the family sets out on a 280-mile road trip from Spokane to Seattle, guided by something impossible: Jack's posthumous video messages, one for each morning, recorded before he died.
His words from beyond become the family's compass. Along the way, Emily appears in a surprise video that delivers the words her children and Eva need most. But Eva's grief doesn't just feel cold — it freezes everything. Her fear manifests as The Dread, a supernatural winter that encases the world in ice. Meanwhile, her imagination also conjures wonder: giant monarch butterflies, rhinos stampeding down highways, polar bears descending staircases.
Their destination: The Summer Tree — a mythical place from Jack's bedtime stories where winter cannot reach. But the tree was never a place. It was the family Eva didn't know she needed. A story about grief, imagination, faith, and the terrifying courage it takes to love again. Faith-adjacent cinema at its finest.
