It was 1920 when Nell Shipman, a silent film starlet and screenwriter from Canada who broke into Hollywood as a teenager, packed up her 10 year-old son, director-lover and 70 abused animal actors and left Tinseltown for the Idaho wilds. Boise-based filmmaker Karen Day is now working a new documentary, “Nell Shipman: Girl from God’s Country,” about this intriguing tale of a woman, lost to history, who worked outside the studio system — while making waves on the inside.
Here’s a bit of history about Shipman:
During Shipman’s time in the remotely beautiful but harsh wilderness of Priest Lake in northern Idaho, she wrote, directed and starred in 25 silent films, sharing billing with her bears, wolves and sled dogs. She embodied the first action-adventure heroine performing her own death-defying stunts while shooting on-location films like “Back to God’s Country,” “The Girl from God’s Country” and “The Grubstake.”Financing for these independent films came from “angel backers” and Shipman was often traveling the 32 miles of frozen lake by sled-dog, and then, in a second-class train seat, to Spokane, Seattle and beyond, ever-spinning gold from her prolific film dreams and empty pockets.She was the first of her kind, a female independent filmmaker. Her storylines of self-reliant women overcoming physical challenges in the wilderness and often, rescuing the male lead, shattered the predictable cinematic formulas of large studio productions.
Director Day has been hard at work on a Kickstarter campaign for the film, with a goal of $26,000 and 12 days to go. A ten-minute teaser reel of the film, with footage from the Shipman archive, screened in March at a lavish party at the Sun Valley Film Festival in Idaho.
Among backers for “Girl from God’s Country” is Idaho First Lady Lori Otter, who noted “Nell’s story is important for women in film and also for Idaho, which has always been home to those who value freedom and adventure.” The Toronto Chapter of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) will hold a gala in May to honor a high-profile female producer and have decided to name the award after Shipman. Karen Day will present and speak about the film, which has been picking up news buzz in Idaho.
More about the doc here. Watch the nine-minute trailer below. Watch Shipman’s 1919 “Back to God’s Country” in full here.
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