Writers visit set of GVSU Summer Film Project

A southern story that took more than six years to write will make it to the silver screen thanks the Grand Valley State University Summer Film Project.

With a working title of “To Live and Die in Dixie,” the project is the first feature-length film produced by students at a Michigan university. Now in its 13th year, the Summer Film Project provides an opportunity for students in the School of Communications to work side-by-side with professionals. Past productions have been 30-minute films produced in 12-weeks.

When a murderer who was acquitted in his first trial went on to commit a second murder, Frances Parker was determined to tell the story. Her true crime manuscript, “Sisters of the Court,” was previously optioned as a TV movie, but not produced.

The GVSU production crew of more than 60 students is working with four professionals, including director and GVSU film professor John Harper Philbin and director of photography Jack Anderson from Hollywood. Philbin visited Parker in her hometown of Monroe, Louisiana. She gave him a tour of the crime scene and introduced him to the trial judge.

“My story is based on true facts about a lesbian love triangle on a southern college campus that ended with not one, but two murders,” said Parker. “I became interested not only because of my passion for writing, but because the incidents were being hushed up by university officials.”

Parker will be in Michigan to visit the film set next week, appropriately, while the courtroom scenes are being shot. Her story is the basis of the screenplay written by Florida International University creative writing professor John Dufresne and Miami lawyer Donald Papy. Dufresne was on the set this week and had a small role as a college professor. Other actors are from Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Parker is an award-winning fiction writer, journalist and poet, who has been published in Southern Living Magazine, the Orlando Sentinel and many other publications. She is an English and Creative Writing cum laude graduate of the University of Louisiana at Monroe and has also enjoyed a 25-year career as a copywriter and political writer in TV, advertising and public relations.

Her role in the film has been fictionalized as the character Eve, played by Heather Prete, a professional actor from Chicago. “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” said Parker.