Yes, ‘Leave No Trace’ is based on a true story. Debra Granik wrote the screenplay with Anne Rosellini, and it is the cinematic adaptation of American author Peter Rock’s 2009 book ‘My Abandonment,’ which, in turn, is based on a news report published in 2004 in Portland newspaper The Oregonian.

Leave No Trace is based on a true story of a father-daughter duo that once lived in Oregon’s forests Ruth and Frank Director Debra Granik sourced Leave No Trace from Peter Rock’s 2009 novel, My Abandonment . Rock based his book on the 2004 discovery of a veteran and his daughter living in Oregon’s forests.