Forget anything that comes to mind when you think of a puppet show. The documentary film A Puppet Intervention brings to the screen radical puppetry as alternative community theater - all with a killer soundtrack. It takes you behind the curtain of a production of Paperhand Puppet Intervention, one of the most innovative and original theatrical troupes in North Carolina.

From chaos comes art, and from art, a community.
For thousands of people in the community of Chapel Hill, NC, a picnic and a puppet show under the stars is an annual August tradition. That’s right. A puppet show. Not the Captain Kangaroo variety, but a spectacular production featuring giant, other-worldly creatures, original music performed by a live band, and stories that seem simultaneously ancient and modern – all performed in a rimitive amphitheater made of stone. Paperhand Puppet Intervention not only tells stories with recycled cardboard, found fabric and donated paint, but weaves together a grassroots community of art, music and environmental activism.
“I’ve lived in a lot of different places and it’s hard to find something that connects you to the community the way something like this does,” says an audience member in the film after a performance. “I can’t imagine this existing in a whole lot of places. It’s just very special.”