A new cute alien in

An inspiring science-fiction adventure, Earth to Echo captures all the mystery, excitement and wonder of an extraterrestrial occurrence in a small Nevada suburb. But at its heart, the movie is about friendship. The three young heroes — Tuck (played by

Munch and Alex — are a closely bonded trio of outcasts, whose time together is coming to an end. Their neighborhood is being destroyed by a highway construction project; forcing their families to move away. Only the promise of one last thrill together — a journey into the desert to search for the source of strange and mysterious messages that have appeared on their cell phones — can distract them from their impending move. “The movie is really about this group of kids and how they have to say goodbye to each other,” says director Dave Green. “There’s something bittersweet about the fact they’re spending their last night together. But is goodbye really goodbye? In our movie, it’s not. It’s a beginning.”

Earth to Echo all began with the seed of an idea from producer Andrew Panay. Panay wanted to recapture the spirit of seminal family movies from the ’80s that he loved as a child — E.T., The Goonies, Stand By Me — movies that managed to conjure the wonder and heartbreak of early adolescence and infuse it with an intoxicating sense of adventure. If the story of E.T. were to happen today, he asked himself, how would it be told?

Instead of approaching seasoned feature directors to help develop the project, Panay decided to go in another direction. The heart of the movie lies in the way the characters piece together the story themselves using their own cameras, editing and insight. This was exactly what Panay wanted from a director. “I wanted to find a young filmmaker from the generation that sits and edits their films themselves,” says Panay.

Earth To Echo is released and distributed by Captive Cinema and showing July 9 in theaters nationwide.