Mayor To Filmmaker Holly: “Start filming, or pay back our money”

SHEFFIELD – A Louisiana town’s mayor has reportedly given an ultimatum to Tonya S. Holly. News reports are circulating all around the city of Alexandria, Louisiana that Mayor Jacques Roy wants Cypress Moon Productions to begin filming “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde” by January or return the $50-thousand dollars the City put up as an incentive. Filmmaker Tonya S. Holly says not so fast.

Alexandria, LA Mayor, Jacques M. Roy

In a report by The TownTalk (thetowntalk.com), Alexandria’s mayor told reporters, “They’re either going to film that movie or the city’s going” to get its money back.” Roy addressed the question that was brought up at a media question and answer session at City Hall, which covered a number of different topics. “It is my intention that she (Holly) honor the (contract).”

According to The Cypress Moon website “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde” is the follow on to Ms. Holly’s “When I Find The Ocean”, which was released in 2006. The information on the site states that her team was traveling throughout The South to scout locations to shoot the movie. She has visited cities, in addition to Louisiana, in Alabama, Mississippi, and Missouri, where she has met with community leaders, held open casting calls, and facilitated acting workshops.

Cypress Moon Studio is undergoing a face lift while production continues in the historic building that once housed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

Cypress Moon also got $25-thousand from the Alexandria/Pineville  Tourism Convention and Visitors Bureau, and another $25-thousand from The Greater Alexandria Economic Development authority for the movie. That’s a total of $100-thousand dollars. But Holly says there’s a lot more to the story. “They courted me, I didn’t go to them for the money. The plan that Alexandria came up with is quite different from the usual kind of film incentive. Incentives almost always come at the end of the movie. But they wanted to try something different, and I was the guinea pig,” she told The Quad-Cities Daily. “We intended to begin shooting in 2009, but the economy went so far down, and our primary source of funding was wiped out. So we had to start over.”

Filmmaker Tonya S. Holly

Holly said that the film’s budget had to be reworked to a much more conservative amount of cash. This took time, she said. “But now, we’re ready. We will be filming in Alexandria before mid-February and everybody will be happy.” In fact, she went on to say, “We’re going to still film in Alexandria, but we are going to give them their money back anyway. I love that area and I love the people. I have spent a lot of time down there.”

We asked her what she had heard from mayor Roy. “I haven’t spoken to him in some time, although I have been in regular communication with staff in Alexandria. I was really surprised to hear what Jacques said at that news conference.”

The shooting schedule calls for a few days of filming here at Cypress Moon Studio before Christmas. Then, the company will move south to Louisiana. There is a discrepancy in the cutoff date for film incentives in Alexandria. Holly says that they need to be filming prior to February 15th, not by the end of January, as the earlier report stated. she said that they expect to be in Alexandria for about 2 weeks before moving to the next location.

She finished up the interview by this, “I have a lot of people behind me. People who believe in me. That’s what keeps me going. I’m determined to get it done. Bottom line, we’ve gotta shoot this movie.”