The crew for “An Uncommon Grace” prepares to shoot a sequence.
Lights, camera... A local film commission brings the ‘action’ to Kentucky Story by LAZ DENES
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litz meets grits whenever the Hollywood film industry sets up shop in mostly rural Southern Kentucky, a favorite stopping point for more than half a century among producers, directors and location managers. Since the creation of the Southern Kentucky Film Commission in 2016, movie and television projects have become more common than ever throughout the lower half of the Bluegrass State. And that activity brings national and even worldwide attention, along with significant economic benefits for one of the most scenically diverse regions in all of North America. A friendship between Hart County Judge Executive Terry Martin and longtime actor and producer Branscombe Richmond brought about the idea of a regional film commission to formalize the process of luring movie and television projects to Southern Kentucky. The state had incentives in place that offered between 30% and 35% in tax credits for qualifying in-state movie and television projects. “Kentucky’s tax incentives being one of the best in the United States, our location being in the center of the state was prime,” Martin says on the Kentucky Film Office website.
8 | May/June 2020
Movie producers have set their sights — and cameras — upon rural Kentucky as the backdrop for numerous films in recent years.
Richmond, whose list of credits includes the motion pictures “Commando,” “Action Jackson” and “Hard to Kill,” was completing a six-week shoot in Hart County when the idea of forming the film commission came about. “I think we’re pretty good,” South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative
