CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — The final day of the Virginia Film Festival featured the world premiere of “Shenandoah,” a new nature documentary filmed in Shenandoah National Park, co-produced by VPM and Orange Frame Productions.

The premiere at the University of Virginia’s Culbreth Theater was a culmination of over six years of work, starting in 2019 when Orange Frame was contracted by the National Park Service to produce cinematography of the park, and a few years later was contracted to use the footage to make a film for Shenandoah’s visitor center.

“Working with the park, we always wanted to make a major film,” executive producer and creative director Elizabeth Crowl said during a post-screening discussion, “but we were kind of thinking about what would be a good way of showing this, telling this story.”

It was far from Shenandoah’s first forage into visual media, as it was one of the first parks to establish a visual media department, which was established in 1998. Claire Comer, a subject in the film who worked 38-years in the park including the visual media department before retirement, said during the discussion that the department began capturing its own footage in the early 2000s, and handed over 60 terabytes of footage to Orange Frame when they were first contracted.

“I think you can’t underestimate the importance of those captures of both the film and the photography in helping us tell important stories of the park,” she said, “and more importantly making that intellectual and emotional connection with the people who see our work.”

Jeff Boedeker, the late director of the original film and co-founder of Orange Frame, came up with the idea of highlighting the constant change happening within the Blue Ridge Mountains, which became the main theme of the film. After creating the original version of the film for Shenandoah’s visitor center, Boedeker reached out to VPM about doing a feature-length version, as Orange Frame had plenty of footage left over.

However, after Boedeker’s unexpected passing in 2023, the project sat until Crowl and Anna Boedeker, Jeff’s wife and fellow Orange Frame co-founder, reached back out to VPM to restart the project, this time in Jeff’s honor.

“VPM was really thrilled to be a part of this,” executive producer and VPM Chief Content Officer Steve Humble said during the discussion.

Anna, who stepped into the project as an executive producer, was on hand for the premiere and provided an introduction before the film. She told Cville Right Now after the event the premiere for her was “amazing, and just on so many levels.”

“I think it’s [Orange Frame’s] first time ever premiering a feature film like that at a festival,” she said, “and we’re proud and excited to have it premiere here in Virginia, where we all have Shenandoah in our back yard.”

Boedeker said she hopes the film will help “spread the word about Shenandoah and the beauty that it is.” She added that the production company is very excited for others to see the film after it premieres on VPM this Spring and for the chance for “the rest of the nation to see it.”

For now, Boedeker said the premiere was “many, many years in the making,” and very different from the hours she spent working and seeing it on multiple screens in the editing room.

“When the sound and the picture, the coloring and everything comes together and you see it on big screen in a room full of 500 people,” she said, “it’s such a proud moment.”