Tillamook Treasure

Production and distribution

Tillamook Treasure played the film festival circuit in 2006 and 2007, and was released theatrically in 2008 as The Legend of Tillamook's Gold. The film opened in one theater in Mesa, Arizona on March 28, 2008 as a theatrical test by Maitland Primrose Group, publishers of Moving Pictures magazine, in conjunction with film festival producers Kids First! The movie premiered in Tillamook, Oregon in July 2007. The film was shot almost exclusively in Tillamook County.

Plot

Sixteenth century Spanish sailors beach their launch on the Manzanita beach. They carry a treasure chest up Neahkahnie Mountain, leading a manacled African slave. The treasure is buried and the slave is killed and laid on top of the ground to "guard" the treasure and frighten away the local Indians.

Julie (Suzanne Marie Doyon), a lonely 14-year-old girl, and her family move from California to an Oregon seaside town as a last resort after her father loses his job. Her family has trouble adjusting to their new life and Julie is forgotten and ignored, as the family adjusts to living in uncle Jimmy's (Brian Thompson) seaside home.

Julie has a dramatic mystical encounter with a Roosevelt elk on the beach. The elk's fur has black hand prints on its neck. Its hooves uncover an old Spanish gold coin in the sand. The elk becomes Julie's silent, watchful guide and protector as she becomes drawn to the legend of Tillamook's gold.

She seeks the wisdom and guidance of her grandfather (Max Gail) and his good friend, Standing Elk (Floyd Red Crow Westerman). The men tell Julie the legend of the Spanish treasure and also of an elk, saved from drowning by the slave who, before his death, had grasped the exhausted animal as it swam near the Spanish launch. Julie is confused because 400 years later, she is convinced that "her elk" is the same elk. Julie's desire to solve the treasure mystery becomes a passion that leads to further mystery and self-discovery. When she experiences visions of Indians, she is frightened. When she tells Grandpa and Standing Elk, the elders realize that she is having a magical experience. Grandpa and Standing Elk suspect that Julie has been chosen to find the treasure and to release the spirit of the slave. They watch and guide her on her quest.

Cast

Awards