The Starling Girl, a drama film written and directed by Laurel Parmet, following Jem Starling, a 17-year-old girl who may have been reared in a fundamentalist Christian community but still feels lost in the world and is attempting to find her place. She wants to keep her religiosity and become an inspiration to her younger siblings because they look up to her. She finds enjoyment in the dance group at her church, but she struggles with her sexuality and worries that her behaviour might be wicked.
She is immediately drawn to Jem’s handsome youth pastor Owen when he visits her church again. Giving into the need, they both engage in a passionate relationship that is risky and has the potential to undermine the foundation of the entire church. The drama film, starring Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Jimmi Simpson, Wrenn Schmidt, and Austin Abrams, is set in rural Kentucky and centres on the tight-knit church community. You become interested in the real filming locations of “The Starling Girl” as a result of the darker undertone, which enhances the dramatic yet sinful sense of the picture. If so, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered!
The Starling Girl Filming Locations
Filming for “The Starling Girl” took place in Jefferson County, Kentucky. According to sources, the religious film’s primary photography started in mid-May 2022 and ended in June of that same year. A number of factors led to the production moving to Kentucky from its original locations of Oklahoma and even New Zealand. Without further ado, allow us to give you all the information you need on the same!
Jefferson County, Kentucky
The story’s setting, Jefferson County in Kentucky, served as the location for all of the crucial scenes in “The Starling Girl.” Particularly, Louisville, the city and county seat, and the nearby environs served as the main filming locations for the drama. At 1032 Story Avenue in Louisville, the High Horse Bar was the backdrop for exterior shots of Arleen’s Bar. Additionally, the Air Devils Inn, located at 2802 Taylorsville Road in the same city, was the place where the inside shots were shot.
For the purpose of filming different crucial moments against appropriate settings, the cast and crew also travelled around the county, particularly to rural locations immediately outside Louisville. Director Laurel Parmet and producer Kara Durrett spoke in-depth with Filmmaker Magazine in January 2023 about the motion picture’s development process. It didn’t seem like a leap to shift the story from Oklahoma to Kentucky because of the state’s large number of fundamentalist communities, according to Parmet, who spoke at length about the decision. Setting the movie in Kentucky seemed to me to still be true to the narrative.
Naturally, we modified the script to make it more “Kentucky-specific.” It wasn’t just like plugging something in and playing it. We changed the storyline, the production style, and even the music. We didn’t want to film in Kentucky in instead of another state because I wanted the plot to feel as real as possible. “It was something along the lines of, ‘If we’re going to shoot the movie in Kentucky, it should be set in Kentucky,'” the director continued.
