Award-winning director casts Columbus students in film
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – A movie director returns to his family’s Columbus roots.
He cast some of the town’s middle and high school students to help in the production.
Columbus students – past and present – participate in a feature film based on Lowndes County.
The Director, Kevin Jerome Everson, contacted the Columbus Middle School Drama teacher, Chelsea Petty, in March about the film.
She helped cast the movie.
“This is actually my first time being a part of a movie. I was kind of nervous at first, but being on set, it’s really exciting and it’s fun,” said Markayla Davis, an actress in the film and a student at Columbus High School.
“It’s definitely been different. It’s not something a lot of Columbus people, a lot of Columbus kids get to experience. So, us being able to take direction from new people it’s definitely a good experience,” said Alexandria Magee, an actress in the film and a recent graduate of Columbus High School.
Filming of the movie Lowndes County started last week.
The film is set in 1959 in rural Mississippi, five years after Brown v. Board of Education and five years before the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“My folks moved up here in 1961 and this is my Mom’s childhood home, so we’re filming in front of that,” said Everson.
Everson wanted to pay homage to his parents’ hometown, so he chose Columbus as the location of the movie.
“When I say home, I say Ohio, but when I say back home, I say Columbus, MS because I have a lot of connection here. A lot of family still here, and then my heart is still here,” said Everson.
The movie is inspired by his father and uncles, who drove school buses as teenagers in the 1950s in the segregated South.
The film follows the story of a brave African-American girl and her older brother who face obstacles and fight against racism to fix their vandalized school bus.
Columbus students have speaking and non-speaking roles.
“I actually learned a lot like how they actually do it, all the behind the scene things,” said Davis.
Everson said he has felt the love from the Friendly City.
“I think a lot of people try to film in the Delta and on the coast, but they should film in East Mississippi cause that’s where the love and happiness is. In East Mississippi,” said Everson.
Lowndes County was written by Everson and Talaya Delaney.
22 students and 10 alumni participated in the movie.
There will be a local screening of the film once the editing is complete. No date has been set.
