The film The Rainbow Prince had a big-screen showing in Doylestown recently. If it’s not as identifiable as other major studio fare, there’s a reason: It is based on a story written by a local girl and produced by her family. Maddie Hanna scripted their saga for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Rainbow Prince sprung from the imagination of Marea Claybourne-Napier. As a five-year-old, she questioned why the fairy tale characters she encountered were nothing like her.

Acknowledging the void, Marea’s mother, writer-director Laura Napier, took on a story-writing project with her daughter.

The tale that resulted reinvents the Aesop tropes from front to back. This saga centers on a hero princess who bravely rides on horseback to save her prince. Both principles are characters of color.

Bringing it to the big screen involved another close-knit hand off: The mother-daughter creatives entrusted their tale to Marea’s father, film producer Doug Claybourne.

The family recruited actors, actresses, and a crew who agreed to work under the Screen Actors Guild’s “ultra low budget” project rates.

Five years after Marea’s initial question about heroines, The Rainbow Prince lit up the County Theater’s big screen.

“It was nice to see it in the real theater,” Marea said.

More on The Rainbow Prince — including its availability for use in schools — is at The Philadelphia Inquirer.