by Allie Vugrincic
WOSU NPR News
The Cinema Columbus Film Festival kicks off Thursday, showcasing independent films, many of which were made in Ohio.
One documentary on the roster, “This is Pike County,” follows the close-knit rural community of Piketon as the people there face mounting pressures, including addiction and a family's murder. The film looks at what it means to come of age in a place that's been left behind.
The movie's director, Laura Paglin of Cleveland, lived in the Budget Motel featured in the film while working on the project. She said staying in the motel gave her a window into her subjects' lives.
WOSU’s Allie Vugrincic talked with Paglin about the documentary.
interview
by Belinda M. Paschal
The Columbus Dispatch
The Cinema Columbus Film Festival will run Sept. 10-13 across four different venues in Columbus.
Key Points
The Cinema Columbus Film Festival will run Sept. 10-13 across four different venues in Columbus.
The festival was voted the country's No. 1 film festival in USA TODAY’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards in 2025.
The festival features a variety of films, including documentaries and shorts, with some focusing on Columbus, Pike County and other Ohio stories.
more …
WOSU All Sides with Amy Juravich
Pike County is located in southern Ohio.
Known for its beautiful landscape and industrial history, the county was struck with tragedy in 2016 when eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered.
The investigation into the murders took more than two years, spanning across counties and states, eventually leading to the arrest of four members of the Wagner family.
When Laura Paglin, a documentary filmmaker, went to Pike County, she found much more than just the murders that shook the community. She found a place that had been ignored for decades.
In her documentary, "This is Pike County," Paglin displays the hardships Pike County is enduring, ranging from the national drug epidemic to anatomic waste due to a plant and nuclear site to the upcoming construction of an energy plant and possibly the nation's largest data center.
Paglin uncovers a community that has been overlooked, but fights every day to keep their friends and loved ones safe in the county where they grew up.
watch interview
Hopewell Heritage Headlines
COLUMBUS, Ohio — This Is Pike County, the award-winning documentary by Cleveland filmmaker Laura Paglin, is slated to screen at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
The 78-minute film follows everyday life in and around Piketon after the April 2016 killings of eight members of the Rhoden and Gilley families. Paglin started visiting in 2017. She has said she arrived because of the murders and stayed because of the wider story of a rural county dealing with poverty, addiction, and isolation.
Ideastream Public Media interviewed Paglin when the film played the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival. She described Pike County as a “forgotten corner of Ohio.” Reviews have noted that the murders enter the film well after viewers meet residents who are not named in the credits. IMDb lists the runtime at 1 hour, 18 minutes. more …
Award-winning Ohio documentary ‘This is Pike County’ comes to the Wexner Center for the Arts
The Pike County News Watchman
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Award-winning documentary, THIS IS PIKE COUNTY, directed by Cleveland filmmaker, Laura Paglin, will screen at the Wexner Center for the Arts at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11 as part of the Cinema Columbus Film Festival. Paglin will attend the screening and participate in a Q&A following the film.
Filmed in Pike County, Ohio, the documentary follows a close-knit rural community facing mounting pressures, including an unsolved family murder, and looks at what it means to come of age in a place left behind.
Paglin first went to Pike County after the 2016 Rhoden family murders brought the area into the national spotlight. She expected to make a film about the aftermath of the murders but became more interested in the people she met and their day-to-day lives. To get closer to the community, Paglin stayed at the budget motel featured in the film. more …
Cinema Columbus Opens September 10
by Hope Madden
Columbus Underground
Cinema Columbus returns for its fourth installment on Thursday, September 10, with a program of 11 features, around 70 short films, three panels, and five venues.
The event kicks off with a program of documentary short films made by Ohio filmmakers, a theme that proved popular for this year’s lineup.
…
Filmmaker Laura Paglin will bring her film This Is Pike County, a documentary situated inside a community rocked by an unsolved family murder.
“I became curious about what it would be like to live in such a small community with an unsolved mass family murder hanging over it. So, I drove down to Pike County, initially thinking I might make a film about the murders …” more …
coolcleveland.com
Pike County is in the south-central tip of Ohio, deep in rural Appalachia. The almost all white county of about 27,000 people mixes beautiful scenery with high poverty. And it’s moved strongly to the right in recent decades: Obama lost it by one vote (!) in 2012, but Trump won it in three increasingly large landslides. It became nationally known for a gruesome mass murder in 2016 when eight members of an extended family were killed; an ex-boyfriend of one of the victims and father of her daughter pleaded guilty and was convicted along with three of his family members. The story attracted widespread fascination and speculation, particularly before the killers were discovered.
Cleveland-based documentary filmmaker was attracted to Pike County by the story’s sordid fascination, planning to document its impact on the community. But instead she found that the community itself was a rich lode of stories of people coping with living in a place that prosperity abandoned and what it’s like to grow up there. The result was her 2025 film, This Is Pike County, which she made while living in a cheap motel featured in the film. more …
by Andrew Shearer
Athens Banner-Herald
The Athens Film Festival returns for its third year, showcasing over 110 independent films from more than 30 countries.
This year's event will feature 20 world premieres and 20 U.S. premieres across six downtown Athens venues.
The festival aims to serve the local community, offering opportunities to watch unique films and meet filmmakers.
The Athens Film Festival will host the Georgia premier of director Laura Paglin’s feature-length documentary “This is Pike County” at Flicker Theater & Bar in Athens, Georgia on Saturday, August 29, 2026 more …
by Jeff Niesel
Cleveland Magazine
This Is Pike County at the Cinematheque
Local filmmaker Laura Paglin (Nightowls of Coventry, Facing Forward) directs This Is Pike County, a documentary about her visit to the rural Southern Ohio community after the Rhoden family murders caught national attention in 2016. The movie makes its Cleveland debut at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. A Q&A with Paglin follows the screening. 11610 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, 216-421-7450
by Joey Morona
cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque will present the Cleveland premiere of the documentary “This Is Pike County” on Thursday, Aug. 27. The 6:30 p.m. screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Laura Paglin.
The documentary chronicles Paglin’s visit to Pike County, Ohio in 2017. A year earlier, the rural community, about 70 miles south of Columbus, was the site of the murders of eight members of the Rhoden family. more …