Robbinsville – The Graham County Historical Association discussed plans to commemorate the 25-year anniversary of the release of Nell, the 1994 feature film starring Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson, and Natasha Richardson at its Monday meeting.
Both Robbinsville and Charlotte served as locations for filming, which stretched from 1993 into 1994.
The Historical Association is planning a public showing of the film, as well as a display of artifacts from the filming once the Graham County Museum is in place.
Based on Mark Handley's play, Indioglossia, Nell featured Foster as a hermit-like dweller of the deep woods who speaks a language only she understands. The movie's plot focuses on Nell's discovery by and introduction to the outside world. The original play was inspired by two real-life girls, Grace and Virginia Kennedy, who were known to themselves as Poto and Cabengo. The severely neglected and isolated identical twins developed a language all their own, involving elements of both English and German, languages the girls had been exposed to but had not actually learned to speak.
While Nell met with a mixed response from critics, Foster's performance earned nearly universal praise. For her work in the film, Foster won a Screen Actors Guild Award and nominations for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
Though Nell is the most recent Hollywood movie to feature Graham County's landscapes, The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, was filmed in the county just the year before. Like Nell, The Fugitive filmed much of its Graham County footage near Fontana Lake.
Yet Graham County's Hollywood connection stretches back much further, all the way to the silent film era.
The 1927 feature, Stark Love, was a ground-breaking film, original in both design and concept. The action-packed love story was filmed entirely near Robbinsville, exclusively using locals as actors, including Barbara Allen, Rob Warwick, "Quill" Allen, and Jason Warwick. The only remaining copies of the film were thought to be lost, but when one was found in the 1980s, a resurgence in interest led the Library of Congress to add Stark Love to the National Film Registry in 2009.
The Graham County Historical Association plans to hold a public showing of Nell close to the anniversary of the release date of Dec. 16.