Actor Derek Kingsley and Denise Shannon play the leads in Maine-made love story “43 Degrees North.” This scene was filmed (in case you didn’t recognize it) at Old Orchard Beach. Courtesy of Ezziebaby Productions
Writing this column means finding a Maine-related movie story to cover every week. And while the growth of the Maine film community has made that task a lot easier over the course of 15 years, we’re still Maine – making movies here carries a degree of difficulty that sometimes makes the Maine movie beat a lonely one.
Well, how about a new feature film written, directed, shot and edited by a native Mainer who came back home (to shoot and to live) after decades away, and whose tale of love, loss, grief and magical reconnection takes place on his home town of Long Island, with stops in Brunswick, Portland, Old Orchard Beach and Maine’s Calendar Islands (Peaks, Chebeague, Cliff). The leads are Mainers, the cast is filled with non-professional and first-time Maine actors, and even the score features exclusively Maine songs from artists like Schooner Fare and Noel Paul Stookey to “The Maine Christmas Song.”
Eric Norcross’ film, “43 Degrees North,” a genre-defying love story with a supernatural bent and some pure Maine flavor is screening at 7 p.m. Saturday at Damariscotta’s gorgeous Lincoln Theater.
“43 Degrees North” is all about love, loss, death … and a shiny silver orb?
In Norcross’ film, a lonely writer (Maine theater vet Derek Kingsley) meets the woman of his dreams (Maine actress Denise Shannon) only to unexpectedly find himself made a widower. The shock is only compounded by his discovery that his late wife has left him a cottage on a tiny Maine island, where the bewildered, grieving writer soon encounters a series of mysterious events suggesting his love story may not in fact be done, including the discovery of a strange silver ball washed up on the shore – that appears to be alive.
Actors Derek Kingsley and Denise Shannon fall in love in Maine-made “43 Degrees North.” But that’s just for starters. Courtesy of Ezziebaby Productions
The film takes a scenic tour through nearly every movie genre you can think of.
“It starts out as a Hallmark movie, quickly switches to Lifetime, then changes levels to something like you’d find on Syfy,” explains native Mainer Norcross. “It becomes a bit of a horror movie before coming back full circle to a Hallmark movie.” That’s a lot of styles in one film, with Norcross noting that the ever-changing nature of grief inspired the film’s hard-to-define journey. “I was really interested in talking about grief in a way I haven’t seen in a movie before,” the filmmaker says.
“43 Degrees North” brought the filmmaker right back home.
“I grew up on Long Island,” says Norcross, “and got addicted immediately to making movies at PATHS (the Portland Arts and Technology High School). After graduation, I went right to film school in Vancouver and then moved to New York, where my family lived for some 20 years while I worked in the film industry.”
Looking for a pandemic-era story that could be filmed under lockdown and social distancing conditions, Norcross initially set his sights on a “cabin in the woods” tale set in Virginia. But circumstances forced him into what became the happy – if hectic – homecoming for “43 Degrees North.”
If the film’s central cottage location looks familiar, you might be a Bette Davis fan.
Norcross’ sudden quest for a new location after his Virginia one fell through saw him reach out to an old friend on Cliff Island – one with connections to a famous Maine movie setting. “It’s the cottage from ‘The Whales of August’” (a 1987 film staring Bette Davis and Lillian Gish), explains Norcross of his protagonist’s isolated but strangely inviting new home. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, really. I contacted a friend on Cliff who knew (famous Maine fiddle player) Bonnie Rideout, who owns the cottage now. I was looking for someone who was sympathetic to the arts who’d let us film, and Bonnie was amazing.”
Rideout generously loaned the picturesque cottage for free (merely requiring Norcross to get insurance), which let the filmmaker and his “no budget” production set up camp for several weeks of hard work among the Cliff Island dunes. “I incorporated Bonnie into the main character’s arc,” Norcross says. “Like Bonnie, he decides to eat a huge tax bill to keep the cottage from being sold to people who want to put up McMansions or just tear it down. When Bonnie saw it, she told me, ‘Everything about this is who I am,’ and I couldn’t have been more relieved.”
The film’s story draws on a little-known aspect of island life for some of its success – and drama.
“It’s an interesting relationship, to say the least,” laughs Norcross of the various islanders’ often unspoken rivalry. “Growing up, there was a sense of competition among people from Peaks, or from ‘down the bay.’ Sort of jealousy for the dumbest of reasons.” Norcross put that cross-island one-upmanship to work for him in a pivotal party scene, where he needed crowds of islanders to fill out a dance scene at the heart of the characters’ love story.
“We filmed first on Peaks on the pier, and got a decent crowd, and then when I moved to Long Island, I told everyone, ‘Peaks showed up with 15 people, can you do better?’ Same thing on Chebeague — we used this competitiveness to our advantage.” In the final film, the multi-location shoot is edited together in one, music video-style montage, movie magic making Mainers’ dueling enthusiasm swirl into one exuberant sequence of down-home togetherness.
Norcross rediscovered his Mainer’s stubbornness to realize “43 Degrees North.”
“I was watching this PBS documentary about the founding of Maine,” Norcross says. “About the two big failures of the Revolutionary War, the burning of Falmouth and the Penobscot Expedition. They don’t teach them in school, but it’s when Mainers realized they were on their own and had to do things their own way. Massachusetts recognized defeat and just walked away.”
Noting how, even in the ultra-competitive New York film scene, he was renowned for a similar independence, Norcross found that old Maine spirit resurface on the islands. “I never felt I had to look over my shoulder here,” the filmmaker says. “In New York, answers were typically a no, or a realization that things were too expensive. Here, I couldn’t count the number of yeses.” (Norcross points to one rural general store – one famous for wedding dresses and firearms – that fielded his call at 7 one morning, and told him he could set up and film at 9.) “Colleagues in New York thought I was crazy for committing all my energy to projects that don’t pay right away – or at all. Back in Maine, it’s all about finding another way to get it done if the structure isn’t working for you.” Taking solace from his Maine heritage, Norcross states, “It was a relief to think, ‘I’m not crazy, it’s in the blood.’”
Come out and see Norcross’ distinctly Maine supernatural love story “43 Degrees North” on Saturday at the Lincoln Theater. A Q&A with the filmmaker and cast follows the movie.
Dennis Perkins is a freelance writer who lives in Auburn with his wife and cat.
Copy the Story Link
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66e7e7af34fa4e15aceb37543508496e&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pressherald.com%2F2024%2F09%2F16%2Findie-film-in-43-degrees-north-a-grieving-widower-inherits-a-house-on-a-maine-island%2F&c=5021944270483043744&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-15 21:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
