“Charlie’s Christmas Wish,” a holiday feature written and directed by local filmmaker Sue Ann Taylor, has been released on Starz. According to the Morgan County Citizen, the film was filmed primarily in Canton and Ball Ground, with additional scenes shot in Ellijay. The movie even features a real Ball Ground Business, Jill’s Cakes and Bakes.
“We are thrilled that our holiday movie will be available to the 26.3 million Starz subscribers,” Taylor told the Morgan County Citizen. “Ultimately, we are trying to raise spirits and awareness of the ongoing issues of homeless veterans.”
The film features Diane Ladd, Ethan Trace, Lindsay McKeon, Richard Tyson, Lindsey Bloom and John O’Hurley.
“Coming home from his last deployment, Sgt. Major John Frost arrives a month early due to a PTSD incident and is happy to be home for Christmas,” Taylor wrote on IMBD. “He finds his wife, Jill and son Jimmy too busy to give him the welcome he anticipates. In his absence, they have adopted a dog - a little dog, Charlie, which is not his cup of tea.
“Jill, owner of Jill’s Cakes and Bakes, has been struggling to pay the bills and has taken on too many holiday parties for her catering business, and forgets an important wedding. John finds solace with the fellow vets at the Moose Lodge until Hank, a retired Vietnam vet, is found by Charlie having suffered a heart attack and is then discovered to be homeless living in tented camp with Capt. Jack. John finds his purpose as he rallies friends, family and community to build a new house for the vets and give them a warm Christmas Eve and a new start on civilian life.”
Taylor is the president and executive producer of Blue Heron Films, which is already working on its next project — a western television series based on a novel by Pickens County author Joyce Southern Bennett.
As reported by the Ledger Inquirer, “Side Trails” will also be a series with Georgia roots. Based on the book of the same name, the series will be set in 1865 and will follow a family struggling to survive after a disastrous venture west in search of better job prospects near the end of the Civil War.
