Corbin native returning home to present new movie at film festival on Feb. 23

Next month, William Robert Chadwell will return to his hometown to realize his dream of screening his very own movie as part of a first-ever film festival to be held at the Second & Main performance and event venue in downtown Corbin.

The movie is titled Moonbow, and it will be officially premiering at the inaugural Dogslaughter Film Festival on Saturday, February 23. In addition to the premiere, the festival will also feature an awards presentation where Best Film, Best Actor and Best Director honors will be handed out to the winners of a short film competition that is currently ongoing on YouTube.com.

Aspiring filmmakers interested in learning more about how they can submit their work can search for “Dogslaughter Film Festival” on the website filmfreeway.com after the event goes live on the morning of Friday, January 25. The competition is free for anyone to enter.

Tickets to the festival can also be purchased on the filmfreeway.com page, including a limited amount of VIP tickets. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. the night of the event, with Moonbow scheduled to begin at approximately 7:15 p.m. A red carpet entrance will be held prior to the screening, with plenty of photo opportunities for those in attendance. Tickets will be sold at the door, but only if still available. Ordering in advance is highly encouraged.

As for Moonbow, it is a horror film, about 90 minutes in length, that Chadwell wrote, directed, produced and edited himself. The Corbin native (CHS class of 1995) said the idea for the movie originated when he used to bring his friends from Lexington, where he has lived for several years, back home to visit Cumberland Falls.

While on these trips, Chadwell would not only introduce his friends to the unique beauty of the Falls itself, but he would also share several stories about supposed happenings in and around areas such as Dogslaughter Falls and Devils Creek. After deciding that some of these spooky tales might look good played out on a screen, he went about the task of writing a screenplay.

Chadwell eventually sat that screenplay aside, and for 15 years it laid unfinished as he finished school, started a family and eventually made a living as a restaurant manager for eight years. Then, when he began bringing his wife, Amber, and his two daughters, Annie and Ava, to visit the Falls, it suddenly felt like the right time to pick the screenplay back up and finish the job that he had started so long ago.

The rest, as they say, is now history. Chadwell finished his screenplay, and then he began making plans to shoot the movie. Operating on a limited budget, he overcame most financial obstacles by getting creative with a pair of Samsung Galaxy cell phones. In fact, Moonbow was shot entirely using those phones, but you wouldn’t know that judging from what you see in the film’s official trailer, now available on YouTube and moonbowmovie.com.

The basic plot of the movie is a camping trip gone wrong, when a group of unsuspecting tourists find out the hard way that, sometimes, legends turn out to be painfully, and tragically true.

When asked what it feels like to be on the brink of seeing his own film screened at a film festival he himself has helped organize, Chadwell said, “I’m feeling very excited. We have accomplished the goals that we set when we started, and it’s really been a team effort to get to this point. A lot of people have believed in this project, and have volunteered their time. They were so inspired, which only helped to inspire me that much more. It’s just been amazing.”

Chadwell has spent a lot of time back home in order to produce this movie over the past several months, but as of now he still resides in Lexington. His long-term plan, however, is to return to Corbin permanently and establish his own film production company. “I want to use the art of filmmaking to promote the area,” he explained. “To hopefully bring more people in, and bring others, like myself, back. I hope to spark the imaginations of other potential local filmmakers as well.”

In the short-term, Chadwell is hoping to help make the first-ever Dogslaughter Film Festival a success. If all goes well, plans are already in place to make this an annual event for the next several years. In addition to the Moonbow premiere and the presentation of awards to the winners of the short film contest, moviegoers in attendance will also be treated to some live music performed by members of Chadwell’s cast.

“It’s going to be cool for people in this area to be able to see familiar places, and hear some old local legends told on the screen,” Chadwell said. “The acting is great, the music is great and it’s just going to be a fun, original movie. There’s nothing that is recycled here. It’s all original.”

After Moonbow premiers at the Dogslaughter Film Festival at downtown Corbin’s Second & Main next month, Chadwell has plans to submit the film to various other festivals in Kentucky and surrounding states.

To find out more, and to follow along with all the latest happenings, find Moonbow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @moonbowmovie. Post using the #SomeLegendsAreTruee hashtag.