NFF: It's the People

The whole weekend at the Nantucket Film Festival would not have been possible without the generosity of The Producer (one of my bosses at the Boston Production Company where I'm a story analyst) and the publisher of Imagine, Carol Patton. The Producer put in a call and soon I was talking to Carol, who offered me an available room at the Imagine house.

Carol is the longtime, tenacious promoter of film and production in Boston. It's thanks to her hard work and organizing, along with an army of supporters, actors, directors, and state politicians that the Massachusetts legislature voted a film production tax credit into law at the end of 2005. Sandy Goetz wrote a good summary of its effect in Imagine this month (it will be online after publication of the next issue). Thanks for your patient in-person explanation, Sandy. After years of industry struggle in the region, there's an air of hopefulness now that financial incentives help draw movies to Massachusetts and New England.

I also met Mick Hoegen, Jessica Hansen, and Fran. Mick worked on Mystic River. Jessica has appeared on stage and screen; I'd be surprised if you did not see her in something big soon. Fran, a hard-helmet deep sea diver, electrician, and SAG actor described his most recent role as "an Irish thug" on The Brotherhood (Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco's latest TV venture). Do you want to hear about the producer who's just hung out his shingle? The policitical gadabout? The conversation was always entertaining. Fran and Mick kept me out late. Thanks, men.

Here's my favorite chance encounter. While I was studying screenwriting at Emerson College, John Stimson came to describe his writing and filmmaking process using The Legend of Lucy Keyes as a model and example. Young Lucy Keyes is played by a terrific young actress who appeared on stage after the New England premiere at the Independent Film Festival of Boston this spring. Calendar pages fly in the wind to the weekend past: Before the screening of Half Nelson, at NFF I saw a captivating short called The Braggart. The young woman in the lead was extraordinary but to my memory, unknown. Then, standing in line to enter Late Night Storytelling with Bobby Farrelly and Anne Meara (I'll say more about later), I turned first left as Joe Pantoliano cut through the line leading his kids back to the car before he went in to the event the back way. Then I turned right and there stood my new favorite star: Anna Friedman. I should have recognized her as The Braggart, but the filming style and her characterization transformed her. She's a sweet, ambitious kid who has great parents. I got Anna's autograph and hoped out loud that someday she'd be in a movie I wrote. I often hear about the superficiality of this business, so it's a thrill to recognize people in this business to whom you can confidently say, "I sincerely respect what you do."