Washington
“Sunset Road:” New rom-com feature focuses the lens on Washington’s Red Mountain wine country – Northwest Public Broadcasting
Sunset Road is the name of a slice of pavement that cuts up the flank of Red Mountain, in southeast Washington wine country. It’s also where a new queer rom-com, also called “Sunset Road,” was shot.
In the first scene, Etta Campbell, played by the film’s director, Janet Krupin, is found on the roadside talking to a friend working in New York.
Sam Work Bestie: “Remind me where are you now?”
Etta Campbell: “Washington.”
Sam Work Bestie: “D.C.?”
Etta Campbell: “State.”
Sam Work Bestie: “Oh, Seattle?”
Etta Campbell: “Nope. Three and half hours southeast. It’s Washington wine country I guess?”
This queer rom-com is available on Amazon Prime Video. (Courtesy: Janet Krupin)
The film is based on the plot of “Romeo and Juliet.”
Instead of the Capulets and Montagues, the warring families are upset with wine and what to top it with – corks or screw tops. They have it out at a popular Richland restaurant, called Fiction.
Papa Campbell: “Maybe one of you could tell me why you prefer screw tops over natural cork? I’ve always wondered what in the world you’d …”
Oryn Montgomery: “How about them Mariners?”
Mama Montgomery: “Screwtops are wonderful; they’re the wave of the future.”
Spoiler alert: No one dies in this rom-com.
Director Krupin was raised in the Tri-Cities, and moved to New York City.
She was on Broadway, and side-hustled hosting gigs.
“Like, I was loving it,” Krupin said. “Doing the acting thing.”
But, then came the pandemic.
“I think it was Friday the 13th, I will never forget it,” Krupin said. “They shut down Broadway and then they shut down the restaurants, and those were my two forms of income.”
She moved back home to the Tri-Cities. She worked at Hightower Cellars during the pandemic.
And her comedy was born.
Krupin plays the Juliet-inspired character who falls in love with the warring family’s daughter. Under the string lights of her real-life parents’ house, the pair sip a rosé called “Any Other Name.”
Oryn Montgomery: “Great body.”
Etta Campbell: “Why, thank you.”
Oryn Montgomery: “[laugh] The wine.”
Etta Campbell: “Well, maybe you can tell me what a wine having body even means?”
Oryn Montgomery: “Body is how heavy or thin it feels in the mouth. Uh, this has a silky but substantial mouth feel.”
This “queer romp” is set amid conservative agriculture, east of the Cascades.
Traci Gillig is an assistant professor at Washington State University. She studies gender, health and media. (Courtesy: Traci Gillig)
Traci Gillig is an assistant professor at Washington State University. She studies gender and media. She said this film doesn’t spotlight hardships for queer people – a rarity.
“And I think also that a lot of what was seen in the past was sort of struggles,” Gillig said, “not that we need necessarily more media representations of those, that sort of space people are living in now.”
The film cast many local actors and business people. Kelly Hightower co-owns a winery featured in the film. She said unlike the warring families in the new film, they use both cork and screw tops.
“When I first saw the movie it made me laugh out loud … It was just so funny,” Hightower said. “I mean actual quotes that actually happened here at the winery.”
Tim and Kelly Hightower sit with Janet Krupin at Hightower Cellars on Red Mountain, which was featured in “Sunset Road.” (Credit: Anna King / NWPB)
The music from the film is recorded by Krupin’s sister, Halley Greg. “Sunset Road” is now on Amazon Prime Video.
* Kyle Norris contributed to this report.
Students are hosting a press conference with Connecticut senators and lobbying against a Republican budget proposal that could significantly increase taxes on universities’ endowments.
Baala Shakya & Henry Liu
Staff Reporters
Baala Shakya, Photography Editor
Yale students will gather at the United States Capitol on Thursday to advocate against changes to federal higher education policy that they believe could devastate Yale’s financial aid and research funding.
The coalition of students from multiple colleges — which calls itself “Fight for Higher Education” — will hold an “advocacy day in defense of higher education” in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Programming includes a rally and press conference with Connecticut Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, which 25 student-advocates registered to attend.
Multiple student organizers told the News that the coalition has received financial support from Yale College for travel costs, and coaching from the University’s federal relations office. The News could not independently confirm University involvement with the student coalition.
“There is a general consensus among young people that there is something about this moment that is urgent and profoundly unsettling, and yet, despite the urgency that we feel, we have failed to follow through and act on that urgency,” Conor Webb ’28, an organizer of the advocacy effort, told the News.
Fight for Higher Education, which does not associate itself with any singular college, organized the advocacy day in Washington in response to a recent budget proposal passed by the House of Representatives in May that would raise the tax on Yale’s endowment from 1.4 to 21 percent, narrow eligibility for Pell Grants, eliminate subsidized student loans and impose a lifetime cap on student borrowing.
The coalition bills itself as nonpartisan, though no Republican officials are slated to be involved in the Thursday rally. At least one registered Republican student will be in attendance, Zach Pan ’27, one of the organizers, told the News.
Four student organizers told the News that Yale College is providing reimbursements for travel expenses to and from Washington for Yale students participating in Thursday’s rally. Pan told the News that Fight for Higher Education was formed specifically to obtain funding for students separate from funds already allocated to participating student organizations.
An outside donor, who organizers refused to name, is covering the travel costs for students from other schools. Many students traveling to D.C. will be housed by volunteers who live in the area, the organizers said.
Several student groups, including the Yale College Democrats, the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, the Yale Student Environmental Coalition and the Yale First-Generation Low-Income Advocacy Movement, have joined the coalition and plan to send members to Thursday’s event. Students from Southern Connecticut State University, Hudson Valley Community College, Macalester College and West Virginia University will also join the coalition in Washington, Pan said.
In addition to the press conference and rally, the coalition is coordinating meetings with senators from swing states, including Republican Senator David McCormick of Pennsylvania, per Pan.
Pan said that Yale’s Office of Federal and State Relations has provided coaching and logistical support to students preparing to meet with their senators about the budget proposal bill which includes the tax hike on universities’ endowment gains. The News could not verify the Yale office’s involvement.
Yale has publicly signaled its opposition to the budget proposal, posting on social media to encourage community members to “tell Congress to protect discovery and opportunity” and “speak up for the future.” In one Instagram post, Yale warned that the proposal could jeopardize the University’s ability to remain debt-free for 85 percent of undergraduates and tuition-free for many middle-class families — arguments that Fight for Higher Education has echoed in their digital campaign.
University President Maurie McInnis sounded the alarm to members of the Yale community when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill in May, urging members of the Yale community to contact their senators and share a set of talking points that emphasize the potentially harmful impacts of the bill on universities.
Emi Glass ’26, co-president of the Yale First-Generation Low-Income Advocacy Movement, or YFAM, told the News that after McInnis stated how the endowment tax would severely affect financial aid funding, she “stepped in to support” lobbying efforts against the bill.
“Given the fact that myself and many of the people involved in YFAM would definitely not be able to attend Yale if they didn’t receive very generous financial aid from Yale, it was really concerning to all of us,” Glass said.
Glass plans to travel to Washington on Thursday to join the coalition of students in advocating against the budget bill. She plans to meet with policymakers and an education staffer for Jon Husted, her Ohio senator, she told the News.
Jake Siesel ’27, co-president of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, told the News that he too will attend the rally in Washington because the Republican budget proposal is “antithetical” to YUPP’s commitment to equal justice.
“If enacted, the bill would amount to the largest cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in American history,” Siesel said. “Our organization stands in solidarity with this advocacy effort and will dedicate all available resources to support it.”
The current 1.4 percent tax on the endowments of most private colleges was signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.
Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown said his office is taking a careful look at the Trump administration’s new travel ban and considering whether the state has a legal basis to challenge it.
“We know that this order will affect so many families in Washington,” Brown said at a press conference Tuesday. “This ban sweeps up medical patients, students, and families and people fleeing persecution. Those people are not [a] national security risk.”
RELATED: Trump’s travel ban is now in effect. Here’s what to know
The ban took effect Monday, barring people from 12 countries from entering the U.S. and adding partial restrictions for seven other countries.
Brown said his office is “actively looking at ways to challenge this ban, but it will be difficult.” He referred to a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a travel ban during President Donald Trump’s first administration. It initially targeted seven majority-Muslim countries before a series of legal challenges led to some revisions.
“The court has gotten increasingly hostile to challenges like the one that may be necessary here, because the Supreme Court has, frankly, gotten worse since 2017,” Brown said.
Gov. Bob Ferguson said his office is closely working with the AG’s office and other organizations to monitor how the ban affects Washington residents from the targeted countries who may face new barriers to entering or reentering the U.S. So far, just one day in, responses have been mostly muted at airports and border entry points, in contrast to chaos that erupted at various airports when the first travel ban in 2017 left many foreign travelers in limbo.
Trump said the ban is necessary for national security.
According to his administration, some of the countries on the list need to improve their vetting processes and communication about security concerns. The executive order also says some countries are on the list because they’ve previously refused deportations.
Hamdi Mohamed is a commissioner for the Port of Seattle, which is tasked with managing Seattle’s international entry points, like Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where the impacts will be felt most. Mohamed said the commission is calling for more transparency in how federal officials enforce these bans at the airport. But it’ll also have an impact within communities living in the U.S., she said. That includes first- and second-generation immigrants.
RELATED: Seattle protesters block ICE vans from leaving immigration court
In addition to her work at the Port of Seattle, Mohamed is also the director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for the City of Seattle. She is from Somalia, which was among the countries targeted during Trump’s last term. The current travel restrictions affect predominantly African and Muslim countries, including Somalia.
“[The travel ban] deepens mistrust. It sends a message that some communities will always be treated with suspicion, regardless of how long they’ve called the United States home or how much they’ve contributed,” she said.
Port authorities expect people from countries on the banned or restricted list will be stopped before they get on a plane to the U.S., but it’s still unclear how that will actually play out in the coming days.
Late last month, Port commissioners also raised their concerns about people who had been held at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility at the airport for an extended period of time. People are only supposed to be held there for a maximum of 72 hours, according to a joint statement commissioners that cited federal standards. Prolonged detention without appropriate process, they said, undermines public trust.
Malou Chávez, the executive director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said she’s especially concerned about people who have been given asylum in the U.S. and are now trying to get their families here from banned countries. Part of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s work includes family reunification efforts for people from some of those countries, like Afghanistan.
“It’s just going to lead to further suffering of our communities. It also sends a clear message of who is welcome and who is unwanted in this country,” she said.
RELATED: A Seattle immigration attorney on ICE and your rights
Chávez said her organization is working with people who have been waiting overseas and have been given federal authorization to travel here. Now, it’s unclear if they’ll face additional hurdles when they attempt to come to the U.S.
For the Washington Attorney General’s Office, the legal fight ahead is only a part of the equation.
Speaking to a crowd of immigrants and their advocates, Brown said there are other ways to address what he calls “dictatorial” and “fascist” actions by the Trump administration against immigrants.
“We need to use our love and our character as well in this moment,” Brown said. “Because it’s going to take all of these things, pulling together to reject the hate that we are seeing from Donald Trump, to reject the lawlessness that we are seeing from Donald Trump, and to reaffirm that the people in this country deserve to be here, and they add value to our state and to our entire nation.”
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