Photo Courtesy of Tiffany Ketcham and Cody McKinney
The silver screen will light up Saturday in Keota with a southeast Iowa flair and a featured presentation tied to the KCII listening area. Writer, director, and Keota High School alumna Tiffany Ketcham is bringing her independent film “The Gates,” a supernatural drama, back to her hometown for a viewing. Ketcham spoke recently with KCII News about her time at Keota and premise of the film, “I think the fact that I got to participate in so many extracurriculars because it was a tiny school made me more well-rounded and brave enough to try new things. I got to try drama and try sports, be in band, be in show choir. To this day, when I am planning out a fight scene, you would be amazed how much choreography is in that and that’s where I’m pulling from. The Gates is a redemption story. The main character Alec Black is released from prison, his best friend Eddie picks him up and the story kind of turns into a scenario where his partner is out to get him, and he actually gets murdered in the fifth scene of the movie. Now I’m giving that way because a lot of things happen after that. This is kind of where it goes into supernatural action movie, where there is a gatekeeper he cons into letting him come back down.”
The movie’s Director of Photography Cody McKinney also has ties to the area, his mother Kathy is a 1970s graduate of Keota High School. He tells KCII news of the challenges that come with a project of this type and the audience experience and reaction, “This is actually my first film. I’ve always wanted to do it, but on top of that, every single person who is in the movie, it was their first time acting in front of a camera. More than that, to take something from your mind and a piece of paper and then visually put it out there. Try to figure out how we’re going to do certain things. What’s going to work? What’s not going to work? The most rewarding part is definitely seeing it all come together and knowing how much time and work we put into it. (At the premiere) we’re trying to take it all in. Tiffany and I, it was a night of lots of happy tears. Just being able to sit there and take it all in and see that the audience is also doing the same thing. They’re connecting with it. We actually did a Q&A later that night and the biggest question we had was ‘How did you guys do this?’ and ‘we couldn’t believe that what we just watched was filmed right here, by you guys!'”
The Gates, which took more than two years to film in the Newton, Iowa area, and features a cast of 20, will have two showings Saturday. The first at the Cedar Rapids Public Library at 12:30 p.m. And the second at the Keota High School Auditorium at 6 p.m. The showing in Keota includes a Q&A session with those who worked on the film. Free will donations can be made at the screening for the Keota Drama Department.
To hear more about the film from Ketcham and McKinney listen to the In Touch with Southeast Iowa programs Thursday and Friday during the morning, midday or evening magazines, or find them free, online, at KCIIradio.com.
