(upbeat music) - PBS Utah's newest documentary "Hollywood in Utah" will take you on an unforgettable journey into the world of cinema, delving into the state's rich filmmaking history.

Producer Nancy Green is here with more details and stories about the film.

It's coming up in St. George.

Nancy, I'm so excited for your film.

- Thank you, I'm excited too.

- I mean, it covers a lot of territory, a lot.

- It does 'cause filmmaking's a really fascinating history.

Hollywood filmmaking in Utah is what it explores and how our landscape especially, shaped the narrative of what the West is, and this sort of iconic notion of, you know, of this imagined space known as the West.

And so we got to spend a lot of time in beautiful areas like Moab and Monument Valley, Kanab.

And it all started about 100 years ago, a couple of brothers from around the southern Utah area called the Perry brothers were in Cedar City, and they basically courted Hollywood and said, "Come out here.

Why use these fake backdrops?

Why keep showing the same old California sites?

Come to Utah and film."

So that's.

- [Mary] And they did.

- And they did, and now, you know, even today we have shows like "Horizon" and Kevin Costner out here and.

- Oh, so many.

- It's still going on.

- Yeah, and I know you kind of touch on also like the economic benefits of those films being made here and how they saved some towns.

- They really did, the small towns, especially Cedar City, Kanab.

Kanab became so industrious with Hollywood films.

It became known as Little Hollywood and "Life" magazine did a spread on it.

And stars would just be around, you know, people would play football with Sammy Davis Jr., and, you know, hang out and talk to the stars.

And they, it was like an everyday occurrence people coming in.

But it did, it saved the towns.

- Yeah, so tell us about the upcoming screening.

- So we're gonna have a screening before it airs.

The show airs November 26th on PBS Utah, but we're gonna have a screening in St. George because St. George was another big filmmaking area.

- [Mary] Yeah.

- And it is today.

There's a lot going on.

- [Mary] Yeah.

- So it'll be on November 18th at 7:00 PM at Utah Tech University.

- All right, well, Nancy, thanks and I'm looking forward to it, thank you.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming film, PBS Utah's "Hollywood in Utah," the screening, as Nancy said, November 18th, 7:00, Utah Tech University.

Go to pbsutah.org/events.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching "Contact."

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Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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