Successful adaptation to the screen is always a challenging feat. There is the inevitable comparison to the source material. Tricia Brock was brave enough to adapt Clyde Edgerton's acclaimed novel of the same name into a compelling short film, The Car Kid, which screened at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival. Now she returns to TFF with her inspiring directorial debut of the eagerly awaited feature version. Set in Missouri, Killer Diller tells the story of a guitar playing car thief, Wesley, sentenced to a halfway house for convicted musicians -- a fate worse than jail as he is a believer in the blues, not the hymns he must now play as part of his sentence. At one of the halfway house sanctioned gigs, Wesley meets Vernon, an autistic savant piano player. He convinces Vernon to play with his fellow halfway housemates, eventually creating the Killer Diller Blues Band that changes him, Vernon, the group, and all those around them. Writer-director Brock has created with natural ease the transition from page to screen with this uplifting, often funny, tale of musical camaraderie. Brock, along with the exceptional cast led by William Lee Scott, Fred Willard, and Lucas Black, gives a fresh take on the underdog story by avoiding heavy-handed clichés to which the genre prone. Instead, Killer Diller proves to be a moving musical journey that features blues legend Taj Mahal and a score by Keb' Mo that is sure to exhilarate audiences from Missouri to New York and everywhere else.