A crowd of at least 60 enthusiastic filmgoers took their seats to enjoy the premiere, which featured a special introduction including a live musical performance from sisters Kate Steig and Melisa Osburn along with an awards presentation for Cheyenne Goode, who won Best Actress at the Berlin Indie Film Festival, and writer/director Jude Rawlins, who won Best Director and Best Editing. Locals will find plenty of Easter Eggs and favorite spots in the area showcased, and they may even notice their own county sheriff, Joel Phillips, in a brief cameo appearance.

The film itself has been a labor of love for everyone involved, and Rawlins — an Englishman who first visited Marshalltown because of his fascination with Seberg and ultimately shot “Little Johnny Jewel” here — said it was a huge honor to see all of the hard work that went into creating it recognized and appreciated.

“When I stop to think about it, I get quite emotional, (but) I haven’t had much time to stop and think about it yet,” he said. “It just hasn’t really hit, you know, but I think when I sit there for two hours watching the movie… I’m just so grateful to everybody for coming, supporting us, showing up and letting us do it.”

Nancy Adams, who befriended Rawlins over 20 years ago and is widely known as the resident Seberg expert in Marshalltown, served as a producer on the project, and she couldn’t recall another international production that had ever been filmed in the area before. As Rawlins and Adams explained in a previous T-R story, “Little Johnny Jewel” is heavily indebted to European cinema — after all, Seberg was best known for her work with the recently passed French auteur Jean-Luc Godard — with a uniquely American reference point mixed in: Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Sisters Kate Steig and Melisa Osburn performed a special duet inside of the theater before the premiere of “Little Johnny Jewel” on Thursday night.

“She’s the reason we met and he’s here and this is happening,” Adams said of Seberg.

Music plays a pivotal role in “Little Johnny Jewel,” with crucial scenes including song and dance routines and a mysterious record store owner played by Jorg Rochlitzer forming key components of the plot and Modern Life is War lead singer Jeffrey Eaton playing the titular character. Rawlins, himself a professional touring musician, said many of the contributions to the soundtrack came from people he knew personally.

“All of them were a kind of cult thing back in the day,” he said.

“Little Johnny Jewel” will be shown at Plaza 9 for the next two weeks and at Fridley theaters across Iowa and Nebraska, and Rawlins hopes to host a Q&A panel discussion in conjunction with a future Marshalltown screening.

Adams called it a bit of a “full circle” moment as the founder of the Fridley Theater chain, Bob Fridley, once owned the Orpheum and knew Seberg personally.

“Word of mouth is a very, very powerful tool. I think, because of the layers of meaning and references in the film, that if people like it at all, they might well see it again,” Adams said. “It was Mr. Fridley’s encouragement that allowed us to believe we could buy the Orpheum, and they’ve been very generous with letting us show this here.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.