Rougarou horror film: Local actor and Lafayette Cajun musician to star.
A Louisiana based movie about the Rougarou stars a Lafourche actor and a Lafayette Cajun musician. The short film is set to be shown next year.
Director Cory Micheal Stewart just wrapped up filming a Columbia University graduate level student film about the Louisiana werewolf known as the Rougarou. The only Louisianan in his class, Stewart said he felt a need to represent his home. He said he was frustrated that most people he knew only knew Louisiana for its tourism, and he wanted to change that by showing off the state's rich heritage and culture. To that end, nearly the entire film is shot in Cajun French, and nearly everyone involved is from Louisiana.
"To me, most people associate Cajun with either like Popeyes or tourist videos," he said. "The culture is almost put on the same sense of a theme park. I wanted to make a story that was centered in Cajun folklore, and Evangeline, the poem, is one of the bigger Cajun stories as to the origins of Cajun and Acadian, and the same thing applies to the Rougarou. I just found those to be the perfect pairing when it came to creating this story."
The film is titled "Evangeline," named after the poem that inspired it, and stars Lafayette Cajun musician Renée Reed as Evangeline Landry, and Lafourche's Hick Cheramie as her father, Theodule Landry. The short film takes place in the fictional Vermillionville during the early 1900s, as the culture shifted heavily to Roman Catholicism. Stewart is hoping to show it to the public at the New Orleans Film Festival next year.
Stewart said those interested can keep an eye on the New Orleans Film Festival, the Southern Screen Film Festival in Lafayette, or his Instagram page: @CoryKinda.
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The 17-year-old Evangeline is coming of age as the culture around her is shifting. The Cajun dialect is frowned upon, and going out in the swamp at night is seen as uncivilized. She refuses to give up her love of the land, and eventually she encounters the Rougarou and the two bond over music.
Her loving but pious father hears rumors about her pagan activities, and struggles between wanting to understand his daughter and being a good Christian.
"He's just a man who is trying to figure out his daughter… it's a teenage daughter, and she has some stuff going on," Cheramie said. "She runs away, and I'm worried and I care about her, but when she gets home, I let her know how I feel about it, and then we go the religious way of discipline."
"Unfortunately I never do understand her," he said.
Playing the part of Theodule started as a passion project for Cheramie, but quickly turned into something more personal. On the first day of filming in Breaux Bridge, the owner of the cabin used as the Landry home asked for Cheramie. When Cheramie turned up, he said the first thing the man asked was "from Galiano or Cut Off?"
After a short talk, Cheramie learned that his mother and father had stayed in the cabin as refugees from Hurricane Katrina.
"How wild is that, dude?," he said. "My dad stayed in the house I was filming in."
The choice of Reed as Evangeline was rooted in her music. Stewart used to shoot music videos for one of Reed's earlier bands. She said she quickly jumped on board with the project because of its deep respect and portrayal of the Cajun culture. Reed graduated in French Music, and the merging of the folktales of Evangeline and the Rougarou interested her.
Acting for the first time, she said, was challenging but rewarding. She described the film as a coming of age story for Evangeline, and she took the role because she could relate to her story. The role isn't too far from her comfort zone as Evangeline is a singer, and Stewart took inspiration from one of Reed's songs Où est la fée.
"The more I read the script, the more I was like, 'Whoa.' Lyrically, it makes sense for the film," she said. "It's talking about this unknown feeling I'm drawn to… There's one common thread of that one song throughout the movie."
This article originally appeared on The Courier: Rougarou horror film: Local actor and Lafayette Cajun musician to star
