A local filmmaker is turning personal loss and global tragedy into powerful storytelling — and putting Owensboro on the map in the process.
Jamie Alvey, a writer, educator, and filmmaker based in Owensboro, is gaining recognition as her short film Your Husband Was a Good Man prepares to make its streaming debut after a successful festival run.
“I’ve done a million things — that’s what my life feels like at this point,” Alvey said.
With a background that includes a bachelor’s degree in English and theater, a master’s in English literature, and a recently completed MFA in creative writing, Alvey has spent years building her creative voice. She currently teaches literature and writing while continuing to pursue filmmaking full-time.
“I’ve been writing since I was 13 … acting since I was 9,” she said.
Originally from Park County, Alvey found her way to Owensboro for college and never left, a decision that continues to shape her work. Much of Your Husband Was a Good Man was filmed in a neighborhood near her home, even incorporating her own yard into production.
“We filmed at a house that was down the street from my home,” she said.
The short film, which has played at festivals around the world — including the Chattanooga Film Festival — explores the aftermath of a devastating school shooting through the lens of grief and desperation.
“I wanted to look at the aftermath … the insurmountable task of trying to process that grief, raise your kids and be expected to heal and move on,” Alvey said.
The story was born from a deeply personal place.
“A lot of intense personal grief I was going through at the time,” she said. “There’s always something catastrophic and horrific happening in the world … and then there’s what’s happening personally with me.”
Rather than focusing on the event itself, Alvey said she aimed to respectfully explore what comes after — the lingering emotional toll and the pressure to recover.
“There’s a very public grieving process,” she said. “People expect you to get over everything.”
The film will be available on the horror-focused streaming platform Bloodstream TV, offering both free and subscription viewing options.
“Being able to actually put something out there and make any kind of revenue on it is awesome,” Alvey said. “That means more can go into what we’re doing now.”
She is also in post-production on a second short film, The Second Circle, which takes inspiration from Dante’s Inferno and blends historical storytelling with psychological horror.
“It’s scary, but it’s also very deeply romantic,” Alvey said.
Set in 1940s Kentucky and filmed in local locations, including Utica, the project experiments with black-and-white visuals and a vintage aspect ratio to emulate classic film.
“It’s in black and white with a classic film style,” she said.
The story follows a woman trapped in a time loop, reliving different versions of her fate — a narrative Alvey said was influenced in part by her own experiences with delayed emotional processing.
“A lot of it was inspired by how autistic and neurodivergent people process emotions differently,” she said.
As she continues to grow her production company and expand her work, Alvey said her ultimate goal is connection.
“If I can make them feel seen … if it helps relieve some kind of burden,” she said, “I think that I will have done what I’ve always set out to do.”
Through horror — a genre she describes as uniquely cathartic — Alvey hopes audiences not only watch her films, but feel them.
“I like making space for people to feel their feelings,” she said.
