It’s a classic tale. Christmas, fighting for what you hold dear, and rekindling relationships. However, this time the story hits a little closer to home.
“Wyoming Christmas Carol” is a holiday movie set just a few miles away in Cody, Wyoming. The lead actress, writer, and visionary for the project, Hannah Barefoot, was born and raised in Cody, and she is thrilled to be returning home for the upcoming film.
“I wrote it set in Wyoming so that I can make a movie in my hometown, in my home state,” Barefoot said. “You know, because Wyoming is fabulous. I love Wyoming.”
“Wyoming Christmas Carol” is about the struggle to prevent a historic dude ranch from being sold and subdivided, a struggle Barefoot related to growing up in the Cowboy State. The protagonist fights to protect the ranch and keep her family together.
“She [the lead] is like, over my dead body, I’m going to save this thing,” Barefoot said. “And so she’s basically like pitting herself against him. It is to save the ranch.”
Barefoot is also excited to feature new original music in the show. She has a deep background in music and partnered with her husband to write the music for the show.
“It’s also got a lot of music, because I was a singer-songwriter, so I wanted to write [the songs],” Barefoot said. “So my husband and I have written a lot of songs for the film, and there’s a lot of music elements to it.”
However, despite the similarities, the show is not a Hallmark show. In fact, right now, it is not owned by anyone but Barefoot and her producer, Mark Matthis.
“It’s not a Hallmark movie,” Barefoot said. “It’s not affiliated with anybody. We’re completely independent. But it is a really joyful, happy Christmas Western romantic comedy with music.”
Keeping the film independent is extremely central to how Matthis and Barefoot envision the movie. This owes to the restrictions that are often placed by major studios.
“One of the advantages of doing it as an independent film is you don’t have the studio telling you how to do the film,” Matthis said. “You don’t have them saying, well, she can’t be the lead actress. You’ve got to get rid of your director. So that’s why we are making this as an independent film, so we can do it how we want to do it.”
Currently, the show has not begun filming. The plan at the moment is to start filming in January. Right now, Barefoot and Matthis are just talking to people in the area, introducing themselves and their film.
“That is what we are in town here right now,” Barefoot said. “We’re just chatting with people about why we’re not filming the movie right now. We’re still raising money for it, because it takes a lot of money to make a movie.”
It certainly does. However, “Wyoming Christmas Carol” has a relatively small budget in terms of the movie industry.
“We are partially financed, but we still need more,” Matthis said. “It takes a lot of money to shoot movies, way more than you think, you know. So our budget is a million dollars, which sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money, but, you know, you go to a movie at the movie theater, and those movies are like that, so this is a really responsible budget.”
While writing the script, Barefoot stayed true to her beliefs. She summed up the show as simply as she could.
“If you can combine all the things that I really love, it is about family reconciliation, because my family almost split up and we reconciled, which I’m so grateful for,” Barefoot said. “And so that theme is very important to me. It’s about music, because I’m a musician. I love to sing, and it’s about Wyoming, my home.”
