Allansford's heaven sent piece of Aussie movie history

The church used in the movie Rabbit Proof Fence was shifted from the film set in South Australia almost 20 years ago to a quiet street in Allansford after the film wrapped.

Allansford's new strategic plan will look to highlight its historic buildings by creating a heritage interpretive trail, but the town has the little-known piece of movie history within its boundaries as well.

The church is in a number of scenes in the movie, but it was made famous in the poster promoting the film.

Jon Gorr was a bankruptcy lawyer at the time and had heard about the sale of the set.

"The rights of the film had been pre-sold and they knew it was going to be a blockbuster, so they sold the set in advance," Dr Gorr said.

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"On that basis, they generated enough capital to finish the making of the film.

"And then it became something that half the world saw and it got translated into so many languages and the rest is history."

Dr Gorr moved the church, which was just a shell, from Salsbury in South Australia where the film was shot.

"It came as a flat pack on the back of a truck," he said.

"It only had an exterior.

"It had no interior."

In 2018, the Gorrs renovated the church, fitting out the interior with recycled building materials and adding stain glass windows.

The church was in the middle of the 1920s Western Australian village where the movie was set.

"It's not that it was central to the movie, the church was on the movie poster and I knew the church was going to be on the movie poster because they told us," he said.

"I knew every second person in Australia was going to be bombarded with this image of this film and this building was going to be the image that they would see, and it was.

"It was the most watched movie in Australia (at the time)."