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Writer Nancy Holley Hughes calls her movie "The Resurrection of Honore Page: Black Cowgirl," but the miracle's not done yet. Hughes is still breathing life into it.

Part of the birthing process is a live reading of a portion of the script — featuring 14 actors, live music and video enhancement — July 28 National Hispanic Cultural Center.

"What's most important to me is to make an emotionally feeling story," Hughes said. "Because the piece you produce will be out there forever. And because we want more than three people to see it."

Hughes' story is set primarily in contemporary New Mexico. It's about a female minister of mixed black and American-Indian heritage who traces her lineage to a New Mexico ghost town. There, she regains her faith and establishes her spirituality on new, firmer ground.

Hughes, born in New Jersey and raised in North Carolina, lives near Santa Fe. She is of black and Cherokee heritage, and she earned a masters of divinity from Harvard.

Hughes said her movie is inspired by three things.

"The first is the story of African Americans coming to New Mexico," she said. "My story looks at a movement of people looking for their North Star, a place to be free."

The second element that inspired Hughes is the story of how black Americans and American Indians have supported each other throughout the history of this country.

"And the third thing is that I've always wanted to tell the story of a woman of the cloth trying to balance her life with her roots and her spirituality," she said.

A public reading of the script was also done in May at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe. Hughes' script has changed since then and will likely continue to evolve after the July 28 performance in Albuquerque.

"It's great for Nancy to hear these readings, because it informs her writing," Eileen Olivieri Torpey, the project's producer, said. "And I'm hoping (the reading) shows people that we have momentum. We want to make this movie now, not 10 years from now."

In December, the project received $15,000 through the state's New Visions/New Mexico Contract Award, a program intended to support and promote the work of New Mexico directors, producers and writers in the creation of narrative films, documentaries, animated and experimental projects.

That's helped fuel the film's development.

The July 28 reading will include original music composed by bass player Rodney Bowe, vocalist/actress Sina Aurelia Soul and DJ Ultraviolet, also known as Shawn O'Neal.

Producer Torpey, an accomplished visual artist, is responsible for the video, mostly landscapes, that provides a background of tone and texture for the story.

Most of the actors are New Mexico residents. The exceptions are Yvonne Huff from Los Angeles and Brian Williams from Greenville, Ala.

Williams, 23, flew into New Mexico on July 24. He recently completed his first movie role, a bit part ("Small role, big opportunity," he says) in "Honeydripper," a John Sayles movie filmed in Alabama.

A mutual acquaintance recommended Williams to Hughes and Torpey. He'll read the pivotal role of Bradley Applewhite, an intense, intellectual hydrologist who helps the title character find herself, helps her pull herself together.

"Sometimes we don't know how to bring all these parts of ourselves — head, heart, different cultures — together," Hughes said.

She said this movie is also helping her bring her favorite film genres — drama, comedy and Westerns — together.

"I love Westerns," she said. "And what better place than New Mexico to write a modern-day Western."