Park City native Bridey Bush and Park City-based award-winning filmmaker Jill Orschel have been working together on a film called “Snowland.”
The film tells the story of Cora Lee Witt, a former child bride from a southern Utah-based polygamous sect who created a magical fantasy realm, Snowland, to escape her painful past.
“The story within the story is about a woman who is oppressed, who learns to believe in herself, and she does it through her own imagination, not counting on outside leaders or the politics of a town or religion, she learns to take life into her own hands and live it on her own terms.”
Witt had 12 children during her time as a sister wife in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When her husband became violent toward Witt and her children, Witt spoke to authorities outside the church. However, the community then shunned and evicted her family from their home.
The film intersperses scenes of Witt speaking candidly about her past with stop-motion animated collages.
“Our film subject, Cora Lee Witt says in the movie, ‘When I look at light on the windowsill, it reminds me of memories going by,’” Orschel said. “And that was the moment that we said, ‘This is the aesthetic that we're going to go with. Wind blowing through leaves and this light coming through.’”
Orschel said Bush brings the aesthetic to life; each animated object in a collage is like a leaf blowing through the wind. All the stop-motion collages were made using natural light to emulate light scattering through trees. Bush said one scene can take days to create.
“It's so intense and magical, our mix of Cora's photos and her drawings, her artwork,” Bush said. “They come together in just such an amazing way, sort of like our collaboration.”
Bush and Orschel started collaborating on the project a year ago, but the film has been in the works for over a decade. Bush was introduced to Orshel by her mother, who had known the filmmaker for years. At the time, Orschel was looking for a local animator and Bush was studying the craft in college.
Orschel has since become a mentor to Bush.
“The thought of being able to work side by side in this studio, in this space, was just really right on with the story we're telling, because the story is all about being creative, being resilient, having grit, getting work done and honestly healing through art,” Orschel said.
Snowland will be finished in the next few months and Orschel said she plans on submitting it to the Sundance Film Festival. Orschel’s short film “Sister Wife,” which is about Witt’s niece DoriAnn, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009.
