Girl From God's Country

Synopsis: A documentary looking at the remarkable career of Nell Shipman, a pioneering figure of Hollywood’s silent era.

Karen Day’s modest but well-researched Kickstarter-funded documentary will be a must-see for anyone interested in film history and an eye-opener for all thinking cinema-goers.

Nell Shipman (1892 –1970) was a Canadian actress in the early days of the cinema who not only progressed in the 1910s to being a screenwriter, director and producer of her own films but was a published author, pioneer  advocate of animal rights (a commitment inspired by seeing so many of them ill-used by film-makers searching for quick effects), and a feminist before the term existed whose films portrayed strong, independent and adventurous women.

The title of this documentary about her refers to Shipman’s best-known film which is also cited in Kay Armatage's book "The Girl from God's Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema" which in turn refers to Shipman’s autobiography, "The Silent Screen and My Talking Heart". The title of Armatage’s book in many ways is more appropriate to Day’s film which first profiles Shipman’s career as she moved from vaudeville to Hollywood then struck out as an independent film-maker based in Idaho, a location which appealed to her love of wilderness.  Using a combination of talking heads, many of them Shipman’s descendants, still photography, clips from Shipman’s films and modern day re-enactments (as was the wont in those days Shipman did her own, often life-endangering, stunts) Day takes us through Shipman's extraordinary early years (which included, almost needless to day, romances with various of her collaborators).

Day then broadens her agenda and looks at the frankly astonishing number of women directors. producers and screenwriters who were active players in the early years of Hollywood. “Astonishing” because their names have long since disappeared as 1920s Tinseltown became increasingly corporatized and its legends were being manufactured around male identities. Women rapidly ceased to be seen except on screen and have never had anything like comparable representation in the industry= since.

From here Day diverges somewhat from her main subject to look at the work of Geena Davis and other women to achieve gender equality in Hollywood today.  Yes, it is a somewhat programmatic shift but Day smartly doesn’t labour her very valid points but returns to the emotional substance of her film, the remarkable Ms Shipman.  As a tribute to a feisty individualist and a clarion call to women film-makers, indeed women in all walks of life, Day’s film is richly rewarding.

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