By Elizabeth Cloutman
“Her Majesty,” a new family movie that premieres Saturday at the Mill Valley Film Festival, is set in New Zealand in 1953. However, its writer/director and its backers have their roots in Silicon Valley.
The movie was written and directed by Mark J. Gordon, son of Dorothea and Chuck Gordon of Mountain View and a 1979 graduate of Awalt (now Mountain View) High School. His sister, Lisa of Los Altos, and her friend, Susan Hailey of Menlo Park, raised the funds for the independent film from individual Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
“Her Majesty” is the coming-of-age story of Elizabeth Wakefield (Sally Andrews, making her feature film premiere), a 12-year-old New Zealand girl who realizes her lifelong dream when the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II schedules a royal visit to her small hometown.
Elizabeth is pressured to renounce her association with an old Maori woman or lose her chance to be the official greeter to the Queen.
“The issues were global and universal - tolerance and standing up for what you believe in,” Mark, now a Los Angeles resident, said. The movie is his first feature film.
Lisa, a senior communications manager for Model N, a San Francisco Internet company, and Hailey, owner of Egon Zehnder, a Palo Alto executive search firm, took on the financing of “Her Majesty” themselves.
Using their contacts, the two closed the deal within five years. “It’s rare for an independent film to have funding of the magnitude we raised,” Lisa said. For Hailey, “It was a story that spoke to me … of what I used to think about as a little girl.”
Mark hopes to find distributors in New Zealand by next year, Queen Elizabeth’s 50th year on the throne.
“Her Majesty” will premiere at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, at the Sequoia Twin Theaters, 25 Throckmorton Ave. in Mill Valley. Andrews is slated to attend the premiere. A second showing is scheduled at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, at the Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St. in San Rafael.
Tickets are $9 for adults and $6.50 for children and seniors. For tickets, call (925) 866-9559 between 1-8 p.m. or logon to www.mvff.com.
