Roller derby thriller with deep S.D. roots premieres Friday at State Theatre

By John Hult, for Pigeon605

There aren’t many feature-length fiction films as Sioux Falls as “Valentine Crush.” 

The movie, which has its South Dakota premiere Friday at the State Theatre and runs through Sunday, centers on what happens when a local roller derby star meets her biggest fan and quickly discovers the ugly depths of his obsessive fandom. 

It was written by a former Sioux Falls Roller Doll and directed by a Sioux Falls resident, includes scenes shot downtown and in local bars, features extras from Sioux Falls and was shot in eight days by a largely Sioux Falls crew.

Post-production was paid for through a Kickstarter campaign backed by local fans, and around 300 of them had the chance to offer feedback at a private screening in August. That feedback helped shape the film’s final cut.

Perhaps most importantly, at least according to screenwriter Leah Simmons — known as Julia Wilde on the roller derby track — “Valentine Crush” depicts the city as a real and vibrant place, which is a welcome change from films that use flyover country as a backdrop for prairie hokum or a symbolic set piece for characters who can’t wait to get out.

“There aren’t a lot of stories that come out of the heartland that aren’t just depressing or focused on rural communities,” said Simmons, who penned her first movie after years of writing short stories and scripts for horror podcasts. “(We wanted to) portray Sioux Falls as this cool place where very diverse people live.”

Simmons and director Jamie Wede leaned into a diverse cast and an eclectic soundtrack in hopes of painting a picture of the Midwest that will resonate with those who actually live here. Sioux Falls isn’t a place to escape but “kind of a safe place,” Wede said.

“The drama doesn’t really happen until you’re outside the city,” he said.

The story is “half roller derby, half psycho thriller,” Simmons said, with the latter half filmed in a farmhouse near Wakonda.

The Friday screening at the State will include a Q&A session with Simmons and Wede and showings of two music videos shot last year alongside the film for Nashville indie musician Kristen Ford.

Ford, who plays “Knockout Nancy” in the movie, will play a show at Club David after Friday’s Q&A and perform again after a Flandreau screening the following evening.

The Nashville-based singer-songwriter is just one of the musicians who contributed original music to the soundtrack, which Wede aims to release as a double LP later this year. The cast also includes a decorated Orlando hip-hop artist named E-Turn, whose music appears alongside Ford’s and the film’s theme song by Bruiser Queen.

The eclectic mix of genres has one connecting thread: “The idea was to use all female artists,” Wede said. “It’s a film about badass women, so I wanted to go that route.”

The attention to sonic detail paid off early for the filmmakers. The movie’s official premiere came at the Haunted Garage Horror Festival,, where it was nominated for four awards and took home the prize for best original music. The latest festival screening, the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival in New York, garnered a nomination for best feature. 

There are Easter eggs and some resonant realism for roller derby fans, too, which gave “Valentine Crush” a boost in Buffalo. One of the judges was a roller derby referee who “just gushed about it,” Simmons said.

“For me, hearing the validation of somebody who’s a fan of the sport and says ‘you really captured that’ was pretty meaningful,” she said.

Word-of-mouth praise for the fast-paced film put it on the radar of other film festivals for 2022. And that’s what the crew members were aiming for: a story that finds its way into a viewer’s heart with energy and earnestness.

“I don’t think it’s high art, but it’s really fun,” Simmons said. “Between the high energy and the music and all the girl power, that’s been the No. 1 bit of feedback we’ve gotten: It’s just really, really fun.”

Wede agrees that “we weren’t out to make ‘Citizen Kane,’” but the movie does enter a relatively small canon of feature-length fiction films written, shot and directed by local filmmakers, among them 2002’s “Class President,” 2014’s “Death Rot” and 2016’s “Of Minor Prophets.” 

Simmons’ role in “Valentine Crush” may even make it a first within the city’s small but growing filmmaking community, according to Julie Anderson Friesen, a writer and producer who leads Cinema Falls.

“I can’t think of any feature film written by a woman from Sioux Falls,” she said. “That’s inspiring and intriguing.”