Bigfork actor Casey Brown showcases Copperhead movie Aug. 26

Bigfork actor Casey Brown will be in Bigfork Aug. 26 for the premiere of Copperhead, a Civil War film that he appeared in along with Peter Fonda and Billy Campbell.

The showing is at 7 p.m. at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts. All ticket proceeds benefit the Bigfork Summer Playhouse Children’s Theater. Tickets are available starting Friday at Electric Avenue Gifts, Merry Gems and the Jug Tree.

The movie will also screen in Whitefish, at Mountain Cinemas, at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 23. Proceeds from that will benefit Alpine Theatre Project. These will be the only chances to see the film on the big screen, since it is not being run at local theaters. Brown attended school in Bigfork through ninth grade and graduated from Flathead High School in 2009. He participated in the Bigfork Summer Playhouse Children’s theater in Bigfork and the Alpine Theater Project in Whitefish.

In the movie, Brown, 21, who grew up in Bigfork, played Jeff Beech, the son of abolitionist Abner Beech. Beech was a Copperhead — a Northern Democrat who opposed the Civil War, advocated peace and restoration of the Union, even if slavery continued. “It’s sort of a perfect parable for our political system today,” Brown said in a previous interview.

Copperhead was directed by Ron Maxwell, who also directed Gettysburg (1993) and Gods and Generals (2003). The screenplay was written by Bill Kauffman.  Copperhead is set in a small town in upstate New York and was filmed in a small town outside Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. “We were shooting in an amazing location all built before 1850,” Brown said.

This is Brown’s fourth movie, which was filmed from May through July last year.