MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Filmmaker Bob Ahmed was scouting the mountains of Virginia for a place to shoot his new movie when he got lost, his phone died, and he kept driving. Then he found the farm he had been looking for in West Virginia.
That unexpected discovery eventually brought Adam’s Fire, a feature film about grief, forgiveness, and friendship across cultural lines, to the hills of north-central West Virginia.
Ahmed, a Pakistani-American writer and director based in the Washington, D.C., area, has described discovering the West Virginia setting while scouting rural locations for the film. The secluded mountaintop farm, with rolling pastures, mountain ridges, and a generations-old cemetery, ultimately became an important part of the movie’s visual identity.
The West Virginia Film Office has identified Lost Creek and other locations in north-central West Virginia as filming locations for the production.
For producer Tom Ohmer, West Virginia eventually became much more than a backdrop.
“You know some movies where the location is a character within itself? West Virginia gave us much more than a beautiful setting; it gave us the heart of the story,” Ohmer said.
“We wanted to show an America that people around the world don’t often get to see—hospitable, kind, thoughtful, and compassionate.”
West Virginia becomes part of the story
Adam’s Fire follows 12-year-old Adam as he struggles with tragedy and the death of his mother. A spiritual neighbor helps guide him toward healing and forgiveness, while a visiting girl who helps him against bullies becomes an unlikely friend. Their relationship brings together two American experiences rarely portrayed side by side.
Ahmed has said one inspiration for the story came from his hometown in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where he saw girls practicing taekwondo at a martial arts academy. He subsequently conceived a story about a Pakistani-American girl skilled in taekwondo who befriends a troubled boy in rural America and helps him find peace.
Even before production began, Ahmed described the story as centered on a beautiful rural American farm and involving fifth-generation Americans whom he characterized as thoughtful and courageous. The film ultimately found that rural American setting in West Virginia.
Lost Creek, a small community in Harrison County south of Clarksburg, lies in a part of West Virginia characterized by wooded ridges, farms, and narrow valleys. Its location also placed the production within reach of several north-central West Virginia communities while preserving the rural landscape central to the story.
For a film concerned with relationships between people from very different backgrounds, the setting provided more than mountain scenery. Ahmed’s account of unexpectedly arriving there—and being welcomed while looking for a place to make his film—reinforced the themes of hospitality and human connection that would become central to Adam’s Fire.
The cast includes Hudson Barry, Jennifer Marshall, Eileen Grubba, Aizzah Fatima, and former Navy SEAL Chris Alvarez. Ahmed wrote and directed the film, and Ohmer produced it.
‘An America the world rarely sees’
The West Virginia setting has also become part of how the film is being presented to audiences outside the state.
A recent Diplomatic Watch feature examined the movie under the headline “An America the World Rarely Sees,” focusing on its portrayal of American identity through family, faith, forgiveness and relationships across cultural lines.
The Washington Times has called the film “a profoundly human story,” while Film Threat awarded it eight out of 10 in a review that described it as “delicate and uplifting.”
For Ohmer, the mountains and people encountered during production helped the filmmakers tell precisely the story they had hoped to find.
What began as a search for a rural American setting ultimately led Adam’s Fire to Lost Creek and the West Virginia hills.
Adam’s Fire opens Oct. 9 in select theaters. AMC Morgantown 12 is among the theaters scheduled to show the film.