Ross McElwee begins Time Indefinite at his family barbecues at its annual reunion on the deck of a North Carolina beach house. The assembly of Southerners resembles a gathered flock of one particular bird, all except Ross, looking like a badass in a black t-shirt and dark shades with a 16mm camera on his shoulder. Ross belongs and he doesn’t. As an insider born into this culture, he understands its rhythms, its beauty and its fatal flaws. As an outsider, one who left the South decades before, he infuses his family portrait with a sense of longing and loss that makes it impossible for him to undervalue its poignancy and beauty. Over the course of the film, McElwee, with humor and compassion, strives to understand his father on the eve of losing him and his own life on the eve of becoming a father himself. Along the way, in classic McElwee fashion, he tangles with a host of colorful folk, each with a story to make us laugh or cry and further Ross down the road a piece. Time Indefinite was released theatrically in 1993 and aired nationally on the PBS independent documentary series P.O.V in 1994.