Around 150 people were in attendance Saturday for the world premiere of “Roman’s Bride” at the Phoenix Fear Film Festival, held at MADCAP Theaters in Tempe. Tucson native Anne Paul starred in, produced and penned the script for the film, while her husband, Michael Paul, directed. “Roman’s Bride” marked the theatrical debut for the couple.

The film won the “Audience Favorite” award at the festival.
“Roman’s Bride” tells the story of a group of rural Iowans who grew up in the area where they still reside, focusing on the relationship of a man and a woman who share a longtime friendship. The man, Roman, is about to get married, while the woman, brought up by a terrorizing orthodox Christian mother who greatly damaged her psyche, is insanely jealous, doing her best to prevent the holy matrimony from happening.

The film, which was shot over the period of three years and took an additional year to edit, proved to be an interesting venture for the couple. Casting friends and neighbors, and shot on Michael Paul’s farm in rural Iowa, “Roman’s Bride” was made more as a product of devotion to the movie business than with the intention of profit.

“Ever since [Michael and I] were little kids, we’ve always loved the entertainment and movie industry,” Anne said Saturday, before the premiere.

During the shoot, the couple kept their day jobs, part of the reason the film took three years to shoot.

“We’re shooting on weekends, shooting when people are available,” Michael said. “We shot outdoors during the summer, and shot indoors during the winter.”

The film was completely self-financed, using friends’ houses, their clothes for costumes, or their cherry pickers to get a certain angle.

“We were really creative with our resources,” Anne said. “We moved from Los Angeles to Iowa ... that was kind of an adjustment for me, but gave us a beautiful setting for the movie. It’s kind of like Mother Nature was one of our stars.”

Michael refers to the shooting and production of the movie as his “film school,” stating he knows a “hell of a lot more now” about filmmaking than he did before shooting “Roman’s Bride.”

“Day one isn’t in the movie, day two isn’t in the movie. There’s probably several weeks of shooting that never made the final cut,” said Michael. “I read a lot of books on film making, but they don’t really teach you anything.”

The script constantly adapted to the production of the film, changing here and there if a certain actor wanted their character to die. Anne would ask potential cast members “So, are you a survivor, or do you want to die?”

“Roman’s Bride” proved to be a challenging, yet highly rewarding experience for the couple, and an exciting event for their friends in Iowa, where movies are rarely shot. They hope that this will only be the beginning of their experience with filmmaking.

“Our goal was set out: ‘We’re going to make a film, and however it turned out, that’s what we had, but we weren’t going to sit around and wait to make it someday anymore,’” said Michael.

Reach the reporter at pmelbour@asu.edu