This is a new review from the HollyShorts Film Festival.
Lynyrd Skynyrd “Free Bird” (Max Moore, 2025)
Fifty years after the recording of this country rock song from the celebrated rockers of the American South, Free Bird finally has its own music video. Max Moore has imagined the song’s lyrics as a love story, dipping backwards and forwards through time.
Mike Seely, Cameron Cousins, and Lindsay Cousins make up the cast. Seely has a lot of the heavy lifting to do as the mature version of the man inspired to relive a major moment from his life by the discovery of an old photo album and a forgotten motorbike at the back of his garage.
The ‘bird’ of the title is shown literally at the beginning and end of the film, but it is the wider topic of freedom and moving on that has captured Moore’s interest. Real-life married couple Cameron and Lindsay Cousins play the young version of Seely’s character and his wife.
This is an interesting film because it was commissioned by Universal Music Enterprises to be an official video for the song. Moore created the story with his brother Alex, a lifelong Lynyrd Skynyrd fan, to do justice to the lyrics of the late Ronnie Van Zant.
The settings are real – the Cousins’ home, a dilapidated diner refreshed by production designer Sally Wegert, and a fireworks shop. The motorcycle ride was captured by drone, which gives a ‘bird’s-eye’ view of the older man’s travels.
After being released online, this short amassed numerous views online, and it is now making its way around festivals. It is a remarkable piece of artistry that leaves a lump in the throat, not least because Van Zant and other members of the band died so young just a few years after the recording of Free Bird.
Lynyrd Skynyrd “Free Bird” was part of this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival.