Woodward, Okla. — VICI - An independent film destined for Sundance will be screened in Vici first.

After using Vici as the backdrop for most of the filming of her full-length feature film “The Dome of Heaven,” Diane Glancy, of Kansas City, Kan., felt it was appropriate to hold the first screening in Vici.

“Since it was made in Vici, I told them Vici would get the first look,” Glancy said.

The screening, set for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Vici school auditorium, is also a sign of appreciation to the community which played a number of important roles, acting and otherwise, in the making of the movie.



A COMMUNITY EFFORT

In fact, Glancy described the film as “a community project.”

“I wanted to see what could be done by a community,” she said as she explained how she used a number of local residents as actors in the film.

“I had about 5 actors with me and I think the rest were all local,” she said.

Glancy noted that she was impressed by what the locals could do, especially as they were working alongside bigger league actors including Wes Studi, whose filmography includes “Dances with Wolves,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Geronimo: An American Legend,” and more recently the voice of Eytukan in the blockbuster “Avatar.”

“I think the local people were just as good as the national people,” she said.  “They did an amazing job of acting.”

They even held up well during the 2 weeks of filming in Vici, which Glancy said each posed their own problems.

“We filmed 1 week in December when it was zero degrees and 1 week in April when the wind nearly blew us off the plains,” she said.

But it wasn’t just in the realm of acting that Vici residents helped Glancy see her dream film come to fruition.

While Glancy is the writer, director and producer for the film, she noted that she also had assistance from local banker Travis Dennett, who served as a co-producer, helping to manage things for her in Vici.

And there are others who served multiple roles while assisting with the film, including the musical Randall family, of Vici’s “Great Western Opry.”

Elra Randall said her son Mark and daughter Molly both have big roles in the film, playing love interests for the main characters, but also helped her and her husband Donnie to produce the soundtrack for the film.

Soundtrack CDs will likely be available for purchase during Tuesday’s screening, Randall said, noting that the CDs feature around 30 all-original songs written and composed by her family.   The songs vary from folk to classical to bluegrass to acoustic, she said, explaining “it’s a mix.”

FILM BACKGROUND

The making of “The Dome of Heaven” has been a long-held dream for Glancy.

“I’ve wanted to do this for about 12 years,” she said, noting she has wanted to make the movie ever since 1998 when she wrote the book “Flutie,” on which the film is based as it follows the life of Flutie Moses, a Native American girl growing up in Western Oklahoma.

Both the book and the film are “about Flutie’s search for her place in the world,” Glancy said.

In addition, she said the film is “about the struggle for education.  It’s about the struggle for economic stability.  It’s about the struggle of a family in Western Oklahoma through the difficulties of life in general.”

Glancy said Flutie’s story is based on her own experiences as an artist in residence with the State Arts Council of Oklahoma in the 1980s when she would travel around to schools in communities throughout Western Oklahoma, including Vici, to make presentations on writing.

“So the story is in part my own story but also a composite of many of my students,” she said.

Glancy described the independent film as “a risk, but I’m very glad I did it.”

After Tuesday’s screening and some final touches to complete the film, Glancy said she is planning on a film festival tour including Sundance as well as some more regional festivals such as the Tall Grass Prairie Film Festival in Kansas and the Trail Dance Film Festival in Duncan.