A California filmmaker plans to shoot a movie called "South Dakota" in central Iowa. Bruce Isacson chose the town of Earlham, about 20 miles west of Des Moines, as the setting for the film about a couple of high school students who end up with a surprise pregnancy.
Earlham Mayor Andrew Arnburg says the town apparently fits the filmmaker’s vision of South Dakota. Mayor Arnburg says they liked the school, which is K-through-12 all in one building for the small-town feel, in addition to the town’s grain elevator.
He says the area around Earlham apparently looks a lot like South Dakota, too, at least to the Hollywood folks. Arnburg says the community is flat and surrounded by wide acreages that are used to grow corn, soybeans and wheat.
The mayor says he’s heard some comments around town about the irony of a movie called "South Dakota" being filmed in Iowa. He says odder things have happened as filmmakers have shot movies in Germany and said they’re in Russia.
The state of Iowa offers 50-percent tax credits for films shot in the state with budgets of at least 100-thousand dollars. Arnburg says the filmmakers will be in town the last two weeks in April.