Working at the top of her form, writer/director Maggie Greenwald has crafted a richly textured, new American story with "Songcatcher." A movie that reveals the discovery of some of this country's most treasured cultural foundations, "Songcatcher" also interweaves three love stories and, with precise attention to period detail, creates an intimate yet hardly utopian community in the rugged mountains of Appalachia.

It is 1907, and doctor of musicology Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) escapes her stifling career in the male-dominated world of academia, taking a trip into the mountains to visit her sister (Jane Adams), who runs a rural school. There she discovers the roots of what is today known as country music, and as she goes about documenting her discovery a whole world is opened up to her, and to us.

McTeer gives a tremendous performance as Penleric, and Aidan Quinn and Pat Carroll deliver memorable turns as fiercely independent - and fiercely proud -- mountain people. Seekers of new talent should keep an eye out for 13-year-old Emmy Rossum, who makes an understated, indelible debut. One of the most significant contributors to "Songcatcher" appears off-screen: musician and composer David Mansfield's vast knowledge of traditional American music informs just about everything we hear in the film, from ballads to bluegrass to Mansfield's own hauntingly romantic score. "Songcatcher" is produced by Ellen Rigas Venetis and Richard Miller.