HILLTOP PRESS
Your Community Press newspaper serving College Hill, Finneytown, Forest Park, Greenhills, Mount Airy, Mount Healthy, North College Hill, Seven Hills, Springfield Township
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 2017
$1.00 BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS
OTTO WARMBIER:
Tragedy is personal in Wyoming Hannah Sparling hsparling@enquirer.com
Wrapped around each tree trunk are two ribbons. One blue. One white. They flutter in the breeze on Springfield Pike as couples walk, hand-in-hand, down the sidewalk. Boys play basketball at the middle school. People mow yards and ride bikes and walk dogs. Life in Wyoming seems normal. But then, there’s a two-man camera crew gathering footage for a national broadcast. There’s a sign on a front porch: “Prayers for Otto & Family.” Thursday, there was a funeral. Otto Warmbier, 22, died June 19, just a few days after he returned home from North Korea in a coma. Nationally and worldwide, his death means a lot of things to a lot of people. But in Wyoming, it’s not about political retaliation or a ban on travel or a show of military force. In Wyoming, it’s about the loss of a son. A brother. A neighbor. A friend. It’s about remembering the boy who was kind, spontaneous and eccentric. Who had a great, if sometimes off-color, sense of humor. Who loved thrift stores and rap music. Who loved people. “He just lived life with such a zest and a passion that I haven’t
PHOTOS THANKS TO ZACHARY MULLER
A red carpet gala took place June 13 at the Memorial Hall in Over-the-Rhine for the world premiere of the movie “Over-the-Rhine” which was filmed in - where else - OTR.
PROVIDED BY CHRIS COLLOTON
Otto Warmbier with Sassy, a friend's dog
See TRAGEDY, Page 2A
JOHN MINCHILLO/AP
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Sheila Vilvens svilvens@enquirer.com
really ever experienced in somebody before,” said Chris Colloton, 22, who first met Warmbier at Terry’s Montessori preschool in Wyoming and graduated with him from Wyoming High School in 2013. “He was the best guy I knew. I still know him – I’m just going to miss him so much.” Wyoming is an affluent community of about 8,400, just a few miles north of Cincinnati. The poverty rate is 2.2 percent. The schools are among the best in the state. It’s the kind of place where the streets are wide and lined
Friends and relatives gather to listen as Fred Warmbier, father of Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia undergraduate student who was imprisoned in North Korea in March 2016, as he speaks during a news conference, June 15, at Wyoming High School.
A ‘MUSK’-HAVE APP
Mt. Airy resident’s movie is earning notice The glamour and glitz of Hollywood came to Over-theRhine last week, as the movie “Over-the-Rhine” made its world premiere at Memorial Hall. Nearly the entire film was shot in Over-the-Rhine, said film writer/producer Mitch Teemley, a Los Angeles-to-Cincinnati transplant living in Mount Airy. ‘Over-the-Rhine’ is a story about a woman who grieves and rages at the loss of her only son, then stalks the heroin-addicted driver who killed him, he said. The overall theme of the story is forgiveness. “It’s a bigger issue than a lot of people realize,” Teemley said. “To be able to truly forgive is at the core of whether people can live whole, happy lives.” Two months after he began scripting “Over-the-Rhine,” Teemley was nearly killed by a drug-addicted driver. “I’m proud of the amazing urban transformation Cincinnati is undergoing,” he said. “But it’s also at the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, and the air is thick with stories of suffering. And of hope. Those stories are what inspired this film.”
Director Mitch Teemley and director of photography Michael Potter discuss a shot.
Stories of forgiveness are compelling, Teemley said. An Enquirer story about a young man who managed to break his heroin addiction served as inspiration for the story, he said. Up until that article, Teemley said his story was going to be about a drunk driver. The Tuesday premiere was the only opportunity to see the movie locally until its release sometime early next year, he said. Over the course of the next several months the movie will be screened at various film festivals. While not officially rated, Teemley said he rates the film as PG-13.
So far the film, made by St. Michael Movies, is earning honors. It was nominated for best picture, most inspirational picture and best musical score at the 2017 International Christian Film Festival in Orlando. It is also nominated for best drama for the 2017 International Christian Visual Media Association Conference in Cincinnati. The entire cast and crew of “Over-the-Rhine” are from the region. Leading lady Christine Jones, an acting teacher at Northern Kentucky UniverSee MOVIE, Page 2A Vol. 80 No. 20 © 2017 The Community Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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