"Runaway Slave" is a coming of age short film, set back in the 1800s at the ripe end of slavery. As the film opens we meet Obadiah, a seventeen year old slave boy, along with his family who has just learned that President Abraham Lincoln has signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing blacks from slavery. Obadiah's attitude towards this freedom soon changes from joy, to confusion, and then finally rejection - "What if nothing good comes of this freedom?" Frightened of the change this freedom will bring his family and his people, Obadiah must decide whether he will remain in a prison of fear or embrace the future with hope and courage.
—Sean Sawyer