SALLY & JESS
dir. John Wintergate, 1989
United States. 94 mins.
In English.
SATURDAY, APRIL 12 – 5pm – ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Spectacle is thrilled to collaborate with our friends from Filmmuseum Boise on a rare screening of SALLY & JESS, John Wintergate’s little-seen (and Idaho-shot) followup to the infamous BOARDINGHOUSE.
A “family film” in content and production, SALLY & JESS is John Wintergate’s unreleased follow-up to BOARDINGHOUSE, his noted 1982 SOV feature. Filmed in 1989 in McCall, Idaho, the film follows the titular brother and sister (played by Wintergate’s children, Shanti and Kodey) as they navigate the fallout of their parents’ (Wintergate and his wife, Kalassu) deaths, fleeing from foster care while a child murderer operates in the area.
Less a horror film than an adventure film with some peril (a specialty of the Mouse House once upon a time) the film is at its best when it’s focused on the Wintergate family spending time together and with friends. It uses the big skies and nearby swaths of forest to make the movie feel larger than its budget. The close knit nature of the small town, pop. 2000, where it was made manifests on screen as actual community resources assemble to aid in the fictional search for the runaways.
SALLY & JESS is a snapshot of a time before the 90s boom turned “indie film” into a cottage industry where you follow every book and manual, trying your best to pass for legitimate studio product, hoping to be rise within reach of the brass ring and cash in on the promise of fame and acclaim, when making an independent movie could simply be a novelty, made for the hell of it, something you show to your friends, and then years later reminisce, “remember when they made that movie in town? What a time that was.”
“Idaho sees a lot of filmmaking among the locals, but not a lot of filmgoing. Until recently, the only repertory screenings run would be the yearly reruns of the usual franchise titles. Filmmuseum Boise (and its earlier iterations) was started to fill the void in film programming. If the only way to view a film I would see in NYC is to run it myself, then I guess that’s what I gotta do. I am very pleased to flip things around in this case and bring an Idaho film to the city.” – Alex Hansen, founder + curator of Filmmuseum Boise