Local filmmaker will host showing of her movie Friday at Mill Event Center
LANCASTER − Friday will be a homecoming for city native Rebecca Tickell.
At 7 p.m. she will host a showing of "On Sacred Ground" at the Mill Event Center. There will be a reception at 6:30.
The movie was shot mostly in Lancaster and Fairfield County about four years ago.
As of Jan. 13, the film is available on streaming services, including Amazon Prime, and in select theaters across the country. "On Sacred Ground" will also premiere this weekend at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus.
The movie was originally called "Heartland," and features William Mapother, David Arquette, Mariel Hemmingway, Frances Fisher and Amy Smart.
It is about healing, specifically from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and centers around the 2016 pipeline protest near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.
MORE: Native comes home to shoot movie
"It's based on real events and it's a drama-thriller about a war vet from Lancaster, Ohio," Tickell said. "He's a fictional character who is facing some personal challenges in his life, one of which is finances. So he gets hired to go to the Dakotas to cover the Standing Rock pipeline protest that happened in 2016.
"He goes to cover it from an oil company perspective. But when he gets there he discovers that things aren't what they seem, and he goes on a very intense personal healing journey. So the film is really about taking people on that journey with him."
Shooting locales included Tickell's father's property in Rushville, the former Trader's Cafe on Columbus Street and at the corner of Columbus and West Chestnut streets, among others.
"It's out in the world," Tickell said. "It's been launched and it's starting to do the work that we thought it would do and creating all kinds of controversy, which is great. People are talking about this important issue, which is what we want. Our little baby that we made right there in Lancaster is coming to life."
Tickell and her husband, Josh, made the film through their Big Picture Ranch company and sent a crew to the North and South Dakota to shoot B-roll footage to merge with the local footage. But other than that, the rest of the movie is was shot in Lancaster and Fairfield County.
Tickell, who now lives near Los Angeles, said "On Sacred Ground" is probably the most challenging of the 15 films she and her husband have made.
"The freezing cold temperatures in Ohio that winter didn't help," she said. "Standing outside in the wet, freezing sleet, hale. That was brutal. But it was amazing how the community came together. For me, having been born in Lancaster and frequenting Lancaster every year because my family is there, it made me feel so more a part of this community I came from. It's a tight community, and it was really wonderful to really feel like I was a part of that."
Tickell said film crews can sometimes feel unwelcome in some communities and that people are not always nice to them. But she said that was not the case here.
"Our experience in Lancaster was on of being welcomed and being treated with kindness and being able to witness an incredible community come together to create this piece of work," she said.
The Mill Event Center is located at 431 S. Columbus St.
Visit www.onsacredgroundmovie.com for more information about the film.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter: @JeffDBarron
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Local filmmaker will host showing of movie Friday at Mill Event Center
