When Portland, Ore., filmmaker Debbra Palmer visited Grangeville in 2000 she didn't know she'd go home with the seed for a documentary.
The independent, feature-length film, "Sky Settles Everything," was three years in the making. Filmed in Grangeville and the surrounding Camas Prairie, it features the small family ranching way of life through the eyes of longtime Grangeville farmer and rancher Wayne James and his first cousin, Portland poet Verlena Orr.
The film was Orr's idea and she produced it. Orr grew up on the Idaho prairie on a farm where the town of Winona once was. Her poetry, which draws from these roots, is woven into the film's storyline, which follows the workings of James' feeder calf operation from birth to sale at auction in Lewiston. James works the land with cowboys and working dogs and does his own veterinary work.
"I was lucky enough to have younger friends who were intensely interested in making the film," says Orr, who has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poetry. "The film, hopefully, documents a way of life that is fast disappearing and that is the importance to me - that a record be made of a way of life that will soon, I fear, be gone."
The film will show at Grange-ville's Blue Fox Theater Thursday through next Saturday. A reception will be held at next Saturday's showing. Orr will be in attendance with the director and crew.
"There is no interest in making any money from it," Orr says of the movie. "It was like ranching and poetry: a lot of hard work and no money in it."
"People who see this film will have the good fortune of getting to know Wayne and Verlena. Their stories are worth telling, and I want people to remember them," says Palmer.
Palmer visited Grangeville with Orr to get a sense of where her poetry came from. On the trip she says she saw clearly the things that matter in life - family, work and art. She started to see the relationships between Orr's work as a poet and James' work as a rancher.
"Both are skilled and profound, and yet I also saw a common vulnerability," says Palmer via e-mail. "There's a moment in the film where Wayne and Verlena talk about life's delicate balance and how we're not always in control. This is where the title comes from - the reality that everything kind of depends upon the weather."
The film is Palmer's first full-length feature and premiered in January at the Northwest Film Center in Portland.
Orr has been asked why she focused on James when there are many other old-timers in the area.
"That's simple. He is family and I am intensely proud of him and very respectful of what he does," she says.
Others who appear in the film include James' two children, Cheryl and Kevin Heuett, and family friends, Leon Slichter, Ted Arnzen and Glenn Suhr who help with work on the ranch. Alice Mattson and Virginia Manes performed music for the film with Almon Manes and Roy Mattson.
The film is dedicated to Wayne's wife, Sandra, who died March 11, 2005. Almon Manes and Roy Mattson also have died since the making of the film.
Bauer may be contacted at jkbauer@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2263.
If you go
What: "Sky Settles Everything"
When: 8 p.m. Thursday and next Friday; 1 p.m. matinee next Saturday, including a reception with the filmmakers
Where: Blue Fox Theatre, 116 W. Main St., Grangeville
Admission: $6 adults, $4 children 10 and under
Of note: DVD copies are available for purchase via www.waynejamesthemovie.com
