A Peace Walk, 100 Hours of Footage and a Prize Film

Peace marches have gotten to be a habit with film producer Cathy Zheutlin of Santa Monica. Zheutlin’s film, “Just One Step: The Great Peace March,” began a three-weekend premiere showing here Saturday, one day after she returned from the Soviet Union and her wedding--to Russian cameraman Edis Yurchis whom she met on the Soviet-American Peace Walk in the summer of 1987.

Zheutlin, who received permission to film the 1986 trek across America only 10 days before it was scheduled to leave Los Angeles, shot the march for 300 days, ending up with more than 100 hours of footage to edit when she returned home. She got a personal loan to buy a used motor home for the trip.

Although Zheutlin and her film crew received initial funds from Guenette Productions to begin the walk, she raised additional money to continue it through mailings, fund-raisers and donations in towns and cities along the route. In the daytime, she served as film director and a camera operator; at night, as producer and production manager. To cut production costs, Zheutlin trained several marchers to work as sound recordists and production assistants.

“The march is really about people acting according to their beliefs,” Zheutlin said of her film. “And documenting their remarkable journey gave me a chance to live and work according to my own personal values.” Zheutlin’s mother, Jonnie, was one of the marchers on the 3,700-mile walk.

“Just One Step” received the first prize for social issues films at the Anthropos Film Festival, co-sponsored by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel and was given a Cine Golden Eagle Award and a Bronze Apple Award. It will be shown at 10:15 a.m. today, and on Saturday and next Sunday, and Jan. 21-22 at the Laemmle Monica Fourplex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica.