Broken Hill heads to Atlanta

by Mar­cus E. Howard
mhoward@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — Film­maker and Walker School alum­nus Chris Wyatt will return home to Cobb on Wednes­day for the release of his newest movie, “Bro­ken Hill,” which pre­mieres at 7:30 p.m. at the Regal Town Cen­ter Stadium-16 The­ater in Kennesaw.

Wyatt is a Hol­ly­wood pro­ducer who has pro­duced sev­eral films, includ­ing the smash hit “Napoleon Dyna­mite,” since grad­u­at­ing from Walker in 1993. Pro­ceeds from the pre­miere will go to the Walker School Annual Fund. Tick­ets are $5 each and can be reserved at walkeralumni.org/brokenhill.

Wyatt, actress Alexa Vega — best known for her role in the “Spy Kids” tril­ogy — and exec­u­tive pro­ducer Sean Covel will visit the Walker School on Wednes­day. They will speak to an upper school assem­bly in the morn­ing and spend the remain­der of the day work­ing with stu­dents in drama and film/video classes.

“Bro­ken Hill” is a musi­cal drama that tells the story of a teenager from the Aus­tralian Out­back who is torn between fol­low­ing his pas­sion for music, which was instilled by his mother, and his father’s desire for him to stay on the family’s sheep farm. After land­ing in jail along­side his high school crush, the teen is given an oppor­tu­nity to orga­nize pris­on­ers in a band competition.

Actor Luke Arnold and Acad­emy Award win­ner Tim­o­thy Hut­ton star along­side Vega in the fea­ture film. The film is rated PG.

“‘Bro­ken Hill’ is about fol­low­ing your dream, tak­ing risks and believ­ing in your­self,” said Wyatt, 33, who lives in Los Ange­les with his wife, Laura, and their 2-year-old son, Liam.

Wyatt said the story was writ­ten by his friend Dagen Mer­rill, the film’s direc­tor, and is based on Merrill’s expe­ri­ences while direct­ing a choir in col­lege. Since its Sep­tem­ber pre­miere, it has been screened at fes­ti­vals around the world and won the best film in its cat­e­gory at the 2009 Gif­foni Film Fes­ti­val in Italy, he said.

Becom­ing a film pro­ducer is a dream come true for Wyatt. He first caught the act­ing bug as a kinder­garten student.

“When I was in kinder­garten at the Walker School I was cho­sen by Mrs. Her­man to play Win­nie the Pooh in our class play,” he recalled. “I’ve been inter­ested enter­tain­ing audi­ences through sto­ry­telling ever since.”

In 2004, Wyatt was nom­i­nated for best pro­ducer at the Indie Spirit Awards. He has pro­duced a total of six films. He said he’s cur­rently in post-production on a film called “Cafe,” star­ring Jen­nifer Love Hewitt from “Ghost Whis­perer” and Daniel Eric Gold from the “Ugly Betty” TV show. He said the most sur­pris­ing thing about the film indus­try is how long it takes to make and dis­trib­ute each movie.

After high school, Wyatt earned a bachelor’s degree in film stud­ies from Brigham Young Uni­ver­sity. He also has a Mas­ter of Fine Arts in motion pic­ture pro­duc­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. How­ever, he said it was at Walker that he learned the value of the arts.

“Walker was a com­fort­able and sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment that encour­aged ini­tia­tive and self-expression,” Wyatt said.

Walker head­mas­ter Don Robert­son said the entire school looks for­ward to view­ing the film one of its 1,600 alumni has made.

“I appre­ci­ate that he extended the offer to bring the movie to our area so that we may enjoy his work and sup­port the school at the same time,” Robert­son said. “Chris’ cre­ative tal­ent was obvi­ous dur­ing his time as a stu­dent here and I know that our stu­dents will learn a great deal from him dur­ing his visit on campus.”

The idea to coin­cide the film’s metro Atlanta pre­miere with a fundraiser was Wyatt’s idea, said Kaleb McMichen, Walker’s alumni rela­tions direc­tor. He said the school’s annual fund is its pri­mary fundraiser.

“Every dol­lar con­tributed to the annual fund goes to sup­port Walker’s mis­sion of pro­vid­ing a college-preparatory edu­ca­tion that is sec­ond to none,” McMichen said. “As such, this effort, like all other annual fund dona­tions, is vital to Walker’s con­tin­ued success.”