Across The Years reveals a story of the United States not taught in school—one that predates Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock and unfolds through the extraordinary rise and fall of the Calvert family, founders of the Maryland colony.

Set against the political chaos of 17th-century England and the brutal realities of early colonial life, the film traces how George Calvert and his son Cecil dared to imagine something radical for their time: a society where liberty of conscience could exist alongside profit, power, and survival. At a moment when Europe was torn apart by religious violence and absolute monarchy, Maryland became a bold experiment in tolerance, representative government, and separation of church and state.

But ideals are fragile. As the colony grows, the film follows how ambition, fear, religious persecution, and imperial rivalry threaten to destroy what the Calverts built. From secret faith and royal scandal to famine, rebellion, slavery, and revolution, the story exposes the contradictions at the heart of America’s beginnings—where liberty expanded for some while being denied to others.

Spanning more than a century—from the courts of King James I to the American Revolution—the film connects the founding of Maryland to the principles that would later be enshrined in the First Amendment, while confronting the moral costs that accompanied them.

This is not a mythic origin story. It is a human one—about risk, compromise, courage, and failure. And it asks a lasting question: Do we know the whole story?