Wes Brooks can rightfully promote his movie Space Prairie — Act I as “years in the making.”
Maybe more importantly, the 26-year-old can also legitimately call himself a filmmaker.
Brooks and two other Peoria-area filmmakers screened some of their work on April 28 at the Illinois Central College Lecture/Recital Hall on the East Peoria Campus. Since the 28th, the three films can be viewed at spaceprairie.com in its virtual theater. Readers also can learn more about the works of Mourning Dove Films at mourningdovefilms.com.
Brooks, William Jacobs and John Voss collaborated to showcase Brooks’ 120-minute Space Prairie — Act I, the 15-minute excerpt A Moment is Enough from Jacobs’ feature-length Poet in a Modern World, and Voss’ 5-minute Moving through the Day.
They all are alumni of ICC, where they attended between 2015 and 2020.
“It was a precious time,” said Brooks. “I met Will on campus and followed him around, hoping he’d like my work as I marveled at his. We have enjoyed a collaborative bond since those early days of cranking out coursework while fighting those battles to stay creative. A lot has happened in the world since we graduated in 2020, so I hope Peorians latch onto the kind of lyrical storytelling that we hope will be life-giving to moviegoers.”
Brooks recalled starting to write Space Prairie when he was 16, two summers before filming and starting college.
“After years of health issues as a child, I began to heal as a teenager and wanted Space Prairie to be a joy ride, a production journey that felt like a Sunday afternoon drive in a roofless car.”
Shot on video cassettes over the last 10 years, Space Prairie features robots and romance in a rollicking adventure about an interplanetary taxman landing on an isolated prairie planet that’s been colonized by a pioneer farmer. After an initial conflict between them, the farmer’s daughter provides an affection they share. Then other settlers notice a disturbing sight in the skies.
Brooks continues to work on Act II, and hopes that the entire movie will be released.
All three celebrate their roots as well as their art.
“The heartland needs a voice,” said Jacobs, the 26-year-old founder of Mourning Dove Films. “What audiences will see is a glimpse of what is possible when filmmakers remain creating in the Midwest, untrammeled by politics and groveling studio executives.
“We are offering what Hollywood isn’t — beauty and heart,” he continued. “These three films are made by ordinary people who care for and love ordinary things. Building alternatives is no easy feat, and so we hope that our projects receive the necessary support for the continuation of beautiful cinema made in Peoria.
“I feel as though — for the very first time as a filmmaker — I am finally making a film,” Jacobs said as he was finishing A Moment Is Enough, a 16 mm production cut from the longer Poet in a Modern World, which he described as “choosing beauty in a world defying it.
“What we experience in cinema ought to clarify the common linkage between us as human beings struggling to exist in this world as spiritual creatures — the very things that go beyond mere politics, celebrity and social media,” he added. “It is beauty that binds us as a civilization.”
Civilization hasn’t overlooked central Illinois, of course.
“Peoria is my home,” said Voss, 24. “I’ve continued to find myself and so much beauty in it, primarily in its landscapes and its people. Moving Through the Day features my beautiful girlfriend, Taylor, spending a day in Peoria’s picturesque Donovan Park. I believe films are a place where modern myth flourishes. We’re all figuring out how to navigate reality with everything we do, including art. You could say that Moving through the Day is a confrontation with the passing of the day and an expression of my love for a couple of things that I find a home in.”