Rebels with many causes

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

Tim Bangle and his prolific troupe of local actors are unstoppable. Following up on the success of their 2022 debut sci-fi film The Fade: Resistance, Bangle and crew offer a sequel called The Fade: Rebellion, which picks up right where the first film left off.

The Panida Theater will screen Rebellion on the big screen Saturday, April 6 at 7 p.m., with a red carpet entrance scheduled outside the historic theater at 6 p.m.

In the first film, teenaged Sam (played by Alora Weisz) is kidnapped by some nefarious characters. When she returns home, Sam finds that two of her other friends have also been taken, so she sets out to get them back, discovering clues that point to the mysterious reason why these abductions have taken place. In Rebellion, we learn more about Sam’s abduction and relationship with Siberia, her mother (played by Holly Beaman). We also meet a new foe of the rebellion, Absinth (played by Meredith Field), who forces Sam and her mother to work together to save her friends.

Bangle said it became apparent that the troupe would work on a sequel after the first film gelled together instantly, all under the umbrella of his production company The Other Dog Films.

“After we did a screening of the first one, I asked everyone if they were ready to do another,” Bangle told the Reader. “With a resounding ‘yes’ from them, I started working on the second chapter that summer.”

Bangle wrote the first film, but enlisted some help from a few other writers with Rebellion, including Lori Anchondo, Lexi Christie and Keely Gray.

Filming with children always presents challenges, and it was not any different for Rebellion.

“The script for Rebellion starts the very next day that Resistance ended, but kids have obviously grown up significantly in the time between shoots,” Bangle said.

Everything from growth spurts to hair length and braces presented hurdles for Bangle and crew to clear, but they made it work. 

Many of the actors returned to their roles from the first film, including Macy Korsten playing Tyler, Josiah Burkamp as Panzer, Natalia Lemley taking on the role of Coen, Wilhelm Anderson returning as Devlin and Crystal Pepperdine expanding her character as Young Sam.

“These actors grew by leaps and bounds from what we saw in the first picture,” Bangle said, whose son Lukas Bangle served as co-director with him. “We put these kids through an emotional rollercoaster. Alora became very vocal this round in how she wanted to inflect dialogue. Josiah had some pretty intense scenes. Devlin, he liked to think of himself as comedic relief. I look at him as the heart of the picture.”

Bangle said he met with the cast before production began in spring 2023, outlining that while they always aimed to have fun while shooting a film, the gravitas of the subject matter required that everyone be aware of the emotional arc their characters would follow.

“Everyone understood and everyone performed,” he said.

The film was 100% filmed in Bonner County, with exterior locations spread across the county often exacerbated by North Idaho weather patterns.

“We dealt with rain, snow, humidity,” Bangle said. “You name it.”

When principal filming wrapped in June 2023, there remained only a handful of small scenes to finish that required snow on the ground, which the crew checked off by New Year’s Eve, 2023.

Now, facing their second film premier in Sandpoint, the cast and crew are excited to take viewers further along on the ride. For Bangle, he’s immensely proud of his actors and encourages everyone to turn out to support their efforts.

“This is a small town and we’ve got a group of people who have come together and made a science fiction film,” he said. “There’s holograms, walls that people walk through, special abilities through implants. It’s sci-fi, but there’s also a human element to it, with subjects and themes in it like control. … I find it’s good for the youth to explore these heavy themes through visual storytelling. I know I learn that way and I think that’s the case for a lot of people.”

Tickets are available for purchase for $20 at panida.com or on The Fade: Rebellion Facebook page. Any local businesses or individuals who would like to sponsor future efforts are welcome to contact Tim Bangle at: [email protected].