Page 62 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2022

neck of the woods | f ilm

Film crew shooting This is Their Land near Tulelake

his first Klamath Independent Film Festival. Since then, he’s become Cannick wants to continue that legacy. “We have phenomenal resources
acquainted with regional film aficionados. “I’m seeing a tremendous to shoot here,” he says, citing locales like Crater Lake, where part of Wild
amount of innovative and uniquely Southern Oregon films coming out of was filmed, along with forests, high desert, rivers, and even Klamath
the community. Additionally, there are lots of youthful filmmakers com- Falls, where portions of Phoenix, Oregon, was shot. An Oregon Film Trail
ing out of education programs like the ones at Eagle Ridge and Klamath marker notes the film was shot at several downtown businesses and that
Union High schools and our own Summer Film Camp.” locals served as extras and helped on the film crew.

He notes that Linnea Gebauer, a Klamath Union High School senior, Phoenix, a low-budget film, has its own history. Its world premiere was
won second in Oregon state competition for her documentary on the at the 2019 Klamath Independent Film Festival, but the film’s video-on-
National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, Fire Season, demand release happened in March 2020, when the spreading COVID-
which aired on C-SPAN. 19 pandemic resulted in a national shutdown of theaters. Because of
timing, Phoenix became the Domestic Box Office’s No. 1 film. It also
Cannick says the Klamath Basin has a history of filmmakers. Most notable has the ironic honor of being the all-time lowest grossing No. 1 movie
is James Ivory, a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Director – in U.S. Domestic Box Office history.
A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day. He also won an
Oscar in 2018 for best adapted screenplay for Call Me by Your Name. There’s Cannick, who notes Klamath Film is Klamath County’s official film liai-
also Chris Eyre, who was raised in Klamath Falls and is best known for son, believes more films should be shot locally and regionally. “Why not
Smoke Signals and Skins. Eyre directed other films and episodes of two PBS shoot films here? You can shoot here and do it a lot more economically,”
series. Skye Borgman won honors for the documentary, Abducted in Plain Cannick says of filming in the Klamath Basin and Southern Oregon.
Sight. All three are Klamath Union High School graduates. “I see it as a win-win,” noting the significant economic benefits and

60 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | summer 2022