(Radio Iowa) – A filmmaker who was born in Italy and now calls Iowa home says shooting should wrap today (Friday) in Oskaloosa on the first round of filming on his latest movie. Max Leonida, the Film Artist-in-Residence at William Penn University, says after spending much of his life in his native country and then a decade in Los Angeles, he’s thrilled to be directing his latest work, “Winter Harvest,” in the Hawkeye State, what he calls a viable location for filmmakers.  “Working in such a beautiful community where everybody is so supportive,” Leonida says, “we realized that basically filming over here, even if there’s not a real tax incentive, and we can work on that in the future, we can go to the legislators and try to rebuild some kind of film commission and tax rebate so that we can attract other production here.”

A movie that costs two-million dollars to make in Iowa, he says, would’ve run 15- or 20-million in Hollywood. Some scenes were shot in Ottumwa, with others in Des Moines, including at the Iowa Capitol, though the majority of the three weeks of filming was in Oskaloosa. The 54-year-old Leonida tells Radio Iowa they’ll be taking a break for the next few weeks, then will resume filming in Italy for another month or so. Many local Iowans and William Penn students and staff are being used in the film, as actors, extras and as members of the crew.  “Some of them were so committed, so passionate and overachieving on the set that we decided to bring some of them with us in Italy. How about that?” Leonida says. “How many universities can claim that they’re making a feature film and bringing the students overseas, not for an internship, for a real job? I think it’s pretty cool.”

Leonida is passionate about how he and his wife became U-S citizens in Iowa in 2022. He says he intends to return to Oskaloosa with his team to begin editing and producing the film. “Students will be exposed to some high level professionals working on the editing, and usually post-production, the whole process takes two or three months, so let’s say January, February, March,” Leonida says, “so by April, we should be done with the first good final cut.”

Director Max Leonida (in black “FREEDOM” shirt) on the set in Oskaloosa (Photos by Reed Peterson, William Penn University)

The film is set in the early 1980s and follows the story of an American military general who’s kidnapped by an Italian terrorist group. Leonida has directed 28 previous films and says he got his start in the movies as a ten-year-old boy in Milan with a Super 8 camera. “That was not even a movie, actually. It was like, that was my crappy stuff that I was doing because I was in love with the job, of course, and I was willing to be a storyteller,” Leonida says, laughing. “So I involved all my friends, my sister, and I was doing some very poor and bad stuff, but that’s my beginning actually.”

Leonida plans to enter “Winter Harvest” in a variety of international film festivals, including Cannes (CAN), and intends to have the world premiere in Iowa in mid-2025.