St. Marie Is BackDrop For Short Film

For current and former residents of St. Marie, the area is home. For others, St. Marie is a mystical place with lots of history from the Air Force Base days, with buildings and artifacts still left over. However, for film makers, the area is paradise for a post-apocalyptic setting for films.

In the fall of 2024, a film crew, including actors, writers, directors and photographers, did just that. They camped out in St. Marie and utilized the ambulance bay of the abandoned St. Marie hospital as the headquarters. A short film called "Orchards of a Futile Haven," was created, with hopes the short film will eventually turn into a feature-film. After wrapping in St. Marie, two weeks later, a slightly different crew and actor, reconvened in Philadelphia to shoot two critical scenes for the film's third act, which takes place in a warehouse.

"Orchards of a Futile Haven," written by Matthew Derby, directed by Edan Cohen, produced by Jeri Rafter and writer/artist/media supervisor and head chef Mary-Kim Arnold, was filmed in St. Marie at the end of September and wrapped at the beginning of October. The short film was shot almost entirely in and around the Glasgow Air Force Base in St. Marie and served as the inspiration and muse for the storyline. The movie is set in a bleak future, where two thieves with a bounty on their heads risk everything to reunite their family in a mysterious wasteland rumored to have supernatural powers.

The synopsis of the film, with a war background, sees two Artificial Intelligences with conflicting protocols go at each other, using human beings as their battlefield proxies. However no one alive remembers this, all that is known is the toll the endless war has taken on the world, scorched battlefields stretching as far as the eye can see. Poison from the munitions leaching into the soil. Bodies of fallen soldiers decaying in the rain and no end to the fighting. "Orchards of a Futile Heaven," is a short film exploring the ways in which our pursuit of desire – one of the things that makes us more indelibly human – can also plant the seeds of our own destruction. It is a timeless story that also speaks to this specific moment in history, as we consider the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence and the consequences of creating machines that grant our every wish.

The crews first scouted the area in April 2024, after receiving a Big Sky Grant from the Montana Film Office. The Big Sky Film Grant program builds and supports partnerships with filmmakers and production companies to create Montana film industry jobs. In addition to providing grant funding, the program elevates and supports Montana filmmakers, crew and businesses and individuals, providing products, services and locations to the film industry. To qualify, a production must film 50 percent or more of the principal photography days in Montana.

Throughout the scouting and filming periods, local Glasgow residents were a huge help to the cast and crew. During the scouting period in April, Glasgow's Tommi Prewitt was hired to get into character and perform model shots in order to provide proof-of-concept prior to the fall filming. Local photographer Sean R. Heavey was part of a the crew, taking stills of the filming process and helping the cast and crew with finding their way around the St. Marie and Glasgow area. Glasgow resident Dave Ahlstedt was also cast in the short film as the wounded solider.

"Glasgow is the kind of place where relationships and friendships matter. It's like a trust. The people we met were such great people. People were so warm and welcoming," exclaimed Cohen. "Everyone was so excited as we were to put this project together, from the homes that were rented to us, to the usage of the land, to Candy at The Loaded Toad, who was our major coffee supplier and FedEx expert, you just need to know like two people and everything gets done!"

Glasgow and St. Marie weren't the only towns involved in the scouting, filming and the help. During the scouting process, a stop was made at the Fort Peck Community College, where Cohen and his crew were able to meet with the media production students, who were then invited to come work on the film. "One of the students ended up being invaluable to us," explained Cohen. "She was very interested in learning how to direct and she ended up working on so many different aspects of the shoot." He also stated Judy Ogle, who runs the media program at the Community College also brought students out on a field trip during the second day of shooting to see the process in person.

When it came time to film, the cast and crew camped out in tents and a fifth-wheel camper near and in the old ambulance barn in St. Marie, as a way to stay in the post-apocalyptic mindset. "The actors were all about staying in character," said Cohen. "One night, it was so windy, the metal garage doors on the ambulance barn rattled the entire night. But aside from that it was super quiet and really relaxing out there."

Now that the short film is completed, the next step is to find a studio that will be able to provide funding to make the film into a full-feature. The film will be entered into festivals throughout the country and Cohen, along with his writing partner Derby, will be hitting the pavement to raise funds for the feature film. "Studios want proof there is an audience interested," explained Cohen. "If all goes well, we hope to be back in Glasgow/St. Marie for a much longer time and make the feature film version, which has always been the goal."

The film has an Indigo crowd source site, http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/orchards-of-a-futile-heaven-short-film#/, which was utilized to raise additional funds for the short-film. Future updates on the film will be provided, as well as information on how to donate to the full-feature movie, once it has been picked up.