'Love Story' headed to film festivals

Aug. 1—"Love Story," a short romantic comedy featuring the creative and performing talents of four people with ties to Greenville, had its big screen premiere at the Texan Theater earlier this month ahead of it being submitted to film festivals.

The four from Greenville who worked on the film are its writer and director Michael Lester, special effects artist Austin Thomas, producer Holly Rice, and lead actress and editor Rachel Rice (who is Holly's daughter).

"It's only seven minutes long, and the project began when I encouraged Michael to try writing a shorter length film to make it easier to enter into film festivals," said Holly Rice, who has won multiple awards at festivals for her work as a producer and as an editor of both short and feature-length films as well as music videos.

Similar to the case with Holly, the last few years have been prolific ones for Lester, who has written, directed, edited and acted in multiple 15-30 minute films, which include slacker comedy "Seeking Priest," revenge drama "No Good Deed" and "The Actor," which follows an aging actor who's looking back on a lifetime of choices and tradeoffs and wondering if they were worth it.

The groundwork for Holly and Lester's eventual collaboration was set when they first met at a Hump Day Hour fine arts showcase at the Texan Theater, when the screen adaptation of "Nanyehi" (which is about late 18th/early 19th Century Cherokee leader, warrior and diplomat Nancy Ward) was shown, which was co-produced, co-written and directed by Holly.

Later, when Lester learned of Holly's daughter's aspirations of becoming a professional actor, he pitched the idea of writing something for her.

"I guess that was the genesis of the project, when Michael told me that he'd like to write something specifically for Rachel," Holly explained.

In the trailer for "Love Story," Rachel can be seen leading as a shy romantic working at building her confidence after developing feelings for a guy she's met recently, awkwardly responding to a compliment about her hair with, "Thank you. I grew it out on my head."

At the premiere for "Love Story," two earlier short films that Holly had worked on previously were shown as well. Both films are comedies. One of which was "Sparky & Butch," which won awards at six different film festivals since its release in 2018. The other was 2021's "Kathy With a K," which has already won awards at two film festivals, one of which was awarded to Holly specifically for "best editing."

Despite these and other accomplishments, Holly remains humble about how she got into filmmaking.

"I started just shooting and editing things for my kids with iMovie (video editing app), then I did things for my church and I kept taking on bigger and bigger projects," she said. "While I do produce, direct and write, I still mostly see myself as an editor."

Holly's current projects include producing "Jude's Gentle Giants," a feature length adaptation of Les Graham's novel by the same name, and editing the trailer for an episode of Mount Hideaway Mysteries, titled "Heartache and Homecoming."