J Paul Johnson
While the bigger—some of the biggest—film festivals, like Chicago International and London Film Festivals, are truly global in scope, other smaller, regional festivals like Twin Cities Film Fest play an important role in fostering more home-grown talent. One of TCFF 2022’s best-received features comes from a state (my home state) few associate with film production, North Dakota, home to the Badlands and to the Western drama Sanctified, which played to a packed house at the ShowPlace ICON Theaters in St. Louis Park Friday night.
Sanctified wears its North Dakota origins proudly on its dusty sleeves, billing itself as “A North Dakota Western” and premiering across the state’s cities—from Bowman and Bismarck to Walhalla and Wing—throughout October before crossing state lines to TCFF for its festival premiere and a neighborly reception. While TCFF has no shortage of Minnesota-made films (for instance, in its “Chock Full ‘O MN” Shorts Block, it’s Minnesota Nice to see this kind of treatment for a neighbor to the northwest.
The Badlands, those impressively spacious and imposing geologic fossil formations to which Western North Dakota (and technically South Dakota) is home, make for a foreboding backdrop in this neo-Western tale of redemption set in the 1880s, just as North Dakota achieves statehood. Writer-director Nickolas Swedlund’s plot is unencumbered by complexity: outlaw Weston (Daniel Bielinski), left for dead by his murderous boss Shaw (Andrew E. Wheeler) in the Badlands, is rescued by a nun, Hilde (Tiffany Cornwell), traveling alone towards a church in Williston.
The two form an uneasy alliance based on a simple exchange: Hilde will help nurse Weston back to health, while he’ll guide and protect her to what degree he can as he recovers. As they navigate the treacherous Badlands, the two develop an uncommon friendship, one that motivates sacrifice as they near their goal—and their pursuers, led by Shaw and including deadeye gunslinger Claire (Chelsey Grant) and Weston’s brother Emmett (Carl Swanson), near their prey. As Weston slowly, painfully recovers from the wound Shaw has inflicted on him, his determination to see Hilde through to her destination.
Sanctified was shot in the Badlands of North Dakota in May of 2021 and was produced by local production companies there—Canticle Productions and DN Cinematics—along with Minnesota production company Headwaters Entertainment. With using local talent a priority of the production, the area’s theatrical companies and colleges contributed their efforts. The film at times will feel more theatrical than cinematic, with characters prone to pronouncement, but Bielenski, who also produced, has a roguish magnetism as Weston that carries the film. His winning charm and lopsided grin recall a young Harrison Ford, uncannily so in some scenes.
Action scenes—a staple of the genre where right is decided by the might of gunplay—won’t have viewers mistaking Sanctified for 3:10 to Yuma, but the story’s final gunfight gives the actors a chance to traipse, dodge, duck, and fire across the film’s extraordinary backdrop. And leads aside, the spectacular setting of the Badlands, photographed by Ben Enke, is truly the star.
Bringing Sanctified to the screen was no easy task, given that North Dakota does not yet have the same infrastructure for film production as many states. The film began with a Kickstarter campaign in early 2020 before being sidelined by COVID, and then able to complete the shoot in May of 2021.
The cast and crew of Sanctified, many of them present for the film’s screening at TCFF, have much to be proud of, and the calamitous reception of the audience suggests there is plenty of interest in the stories, myths, and legends of a state that has to date rarely been seen or represented on the big screen. Sanctified continues its theatrical run in North Dakota theatres throughout November, 2022.
