Hi-Line debuts on the big screen

Many eyes across the country are turning to Missoula this week for the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, where some of them will catch a glimpse of the Hi-Line.

On Saturday evening, the second to last day of the festival, a documentary called "Visionary Insight" will be screened, about a group of Native American students from across the country, including Fort Belknap and Blackfeet Indian reservations, who converged on the Hi-Line this summer to work on the filming of "Winter in the Blood," an adaptation of the classic novel by Fort Belknap native James Welch.

Courtesy photo

A scene from "Winter in the Blood," which was filmed in Havre and Chinook.

The documentary screening will also be the first public showing of the trailer for "Winter in the Blood," which was filmed mostly in Havre and Chinook in August. Area filming captured the setting and tone of the novel, about a Fort Belknap man searching the Hi-Line, from Havre to Malta, for his absent girlfriend while dealing with his past.

Aside from the trailer, the screening will also show clips of the movie followed by a question- and-answer session with the screenwriting and directing brothers of the film, Andrew and Alex Smith, who were born and raised in Missoula and knew Welch.

Be sure to checkout http://www.havredailynews.com and http://www.hiline.us next week for interviews with the Smith brothers and Tracy Rector, who made the "Visionary Insight" documentary, as well as clips and the actual trailer, to catch a glimpse of the Smith's vision of the Hi-Line during the 1950s and '70s.