Jim Weter, Ole Miss alumnus and founder of Cellardoor Cinema, is currently running a campaign to finish raising funds for his film “The Last Earth Girl.”
The film, now in post-production, is to be dedicated to Jim Shollenberger, who served as the theatre arts chair at the university from 1984 to 2010 and also played a role in “The Last Earth Girl” before his death.
“The Last Earth Girl” focuses on a young woman named Miriam who must decide what she holds important in the face of an announcement stating the world will end in seven years. Directed and cinematographed by Weter, “The Last Earth Girl” will be the fourth feature length film to be produced by Cellardoor Cinema.
The idea of “The Last Earth Girl” was inspired by a short story written by Miriam Creque and adapted to the screen by her father, Stuart Creque. He said Miriam took an existentialist approach to how people would react to impending destruction when she wrote the story for a psychology and religion class at UC Santa Cruz.
“I’m extremely proud to have helped my daughter present her story to a wider audience, and I’m grateful to Jim Weter and his cast and crew for bringing that story to life,” Creque said.
To assure that Miriam’s story makes its full transformation from short story to feature-length film, Weter is hosting a Seed&Spark campaign to raise $9,000 before the end of the month.
“The campaign to finish our film will fund the production of the few but crucial visual effects or CG (computer graphics) shots in the film,” Weter said. “We were able to film and complete 99 percent of the film, with the exception of a few crucial shots that take place outside of the space shuttle as the ship passes the planets in our solar system, so the goal of our campaign is to turn these concept art shots into visual effects or CG shots, which will complete the film.”
At the time of completion, “The Last Earth Girl” will be dedicated to the life of Shollenberger, who played the role of a mission control specialist for an organization comparable to NASA. For Weter, “The Last Earth Girl” is a way to reconnect with a lost friend and colleague.
“Seeing (Shollenberger) again and hearing him on screen is a good way to remember him and celebrate his life as a filmmaker,” Weter said. “Jim Shollenberger wouldn’t want anyone to focus on him being gone, but instead to look at the work he did while he was alive and all the productions he was involved in, both in film and on the stage at Ole Miss.”
For Creque and Weter, university students have a unique opportunity to use film as a bridge connecting them to their local communities, and “The Last Earth Girl” hopes to aid this trend of connection.
“I do feel that students and alumni have a unique opportunity to support both the arts in the community on and near the campus and the artistic efforts of the members of their continuing alumni community,” Creque said. “The shared experience of a university education is the basis for reciprocal support for each other, whether in career development or artistic expression.”
Creque is not alone in the regard he holds for “The Last Earth Girl.” Duane Craig, who debuted his acting career in the film, is outspokenly excited for the premiere of the film and is proud of the feat Cellardoor Cinema accomplished.
“I hope every audience for ‘The Last Earth Girl’ will really feel the humanity that we tried to take from writer Stuart Creque’s script and put on screen,” Craig said. “It’s very much a coming-of-self film amidst certain destruction of our planet, and I think our central character, Miriam, is as tragically human as possible to deal with it. We took on a lot in one film, but I’m serious in saying that we pulled it off.”
