What’s Happening

We got a great reception at the Woods Hole screening last nite–and delighted that the fest has scheduled a 2nd screening on Thursday.  Check with the fest for time & place.

Sheila and I have been receiving a lot of comments, but they’ve gone to the mail 

account instead of the comments section, so we wanted to share some of them 

with you.

Linda Campbellton wrote in to say:
I lived all my life in Maine prior to moving to Arizona. This is a film that I would like to see, but do not know if it is going to be shown anywhere in the Tucson area. For many years I lived in the Chelsea area and I watched as small farms got traded for housing lots and the horses that my daughter lovingly tended for a neighbor simply disappeared. Please let me know if it is going to be shown here.

Patrick Bonsant, manager of  Saco River Community Television wrote:

I was in the audience in Waterville Sunday night and was 

thoroughly entertained by Knee Deep - I think it’s the 

most authentically Maine film I’ve ever seen. The public 

access/community television station I manage

in Hollis is located in a rural area of York County 

not at all unlike Farmington.  I’m sure the folks around 

here would love to see this film - the issues are the same

around here.  If I purchase the film, would it be possible 

to show to our audience? This is a farm community that has seen 

better days and Knee Deep would surely resonate deeply 

with our viewers. Thank you for your consideration and thank

you also for making a movie that was respectful to Maine’s 

working class.

While we can’t yet release the film to local tv broadcast until we have 

our domestic broadcast in place, we were very happy to hear somethng 

that we have long believed:there is an audience out there waiting to 

see this film. 

 

We also heard from Gary and Sue Copeland that Andrew Robinson is 

only an Assistant  District Attorney, not the actual District Attorney 

for Franklin County.  Norman Croteau is the D.A.  While we were already

aware of that, it’s nice to have people paying attention.  Given the style

of our “lower-thirds”, calling Andrew “The ADA” would have been confusing, 

which is why we referred to him as “The DA” in the film. 

And last, the clerks from both the Franklin County Superior Court

and the Farmington District Court wrote in to ask where they

could obtain copies of the film.  They'd heard the film was

a "must-see"!  

We were happy to tell them that DVD's are now available from this site.

Sheila and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the Maine Film Festival for making our experience there wonderful. First, to Programmers Ken and Beth Eisen, for taking the film, and to Shannon Haines, Fest Director, who did so much work in making sure it got out to the public and everything went so smoothly. Also, to Alan Sanborn, fest programmer, and venue manager Serena Sanborn, projectionists Jake and Meg, Guest Services Coordinator Brandy Wheeler, and all the other people who helped Knee Deep reach its Maine audience. Thanks again.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts about the film or the web site–anything from
Who Shot Mom? to
What’s happening to farms in your area?

Well, it’s midnite, and the flight from Denver’s finally fixed… so I’ll post more later.

Before I write any more, here are the markets where Robin Chase will be all summer–Be sure not to miss the molasses donuts…and the biscuits…and the raspberry pie…and the…

Monday & Friday: Damariscotta Farmers Market, Belvedere Road, 9-12

Tuesday:             Augusta Farmers Market, Mill Park, 2-6

Thursday:            Boothbay Farmers Market, Boothbay Commons, 9-12

Saturday:            Bath Farmers Market, Waterfront Park, 8:30-12

Her pies are also sold at the Weatherbird in Damariscotta, and at the Five Island Farm Store in Georgetown.

Terrific, we’re up and running!

At the first screening, three of Josh’s aunts and uncles showed up, and loved the film–went home to tell Josh all about it, but he was still shy about showing up.

On Sunday, the whole Chase family showed up–Robin, Pat, and Isaiah, and they graciously took a bow at the end to a round of very warm applause. The audience was so enticed by Robin’s pies that they wanted to know her market schedule, and they wanted it posted on the site–which I’ll do in the next post.

Friends Dan & Peg from Moab came from Camden with a picnic lunch, and friends Norma & Stan up from Westport. It was a real party. Isaiah said he’d try to call Josh and bring him by for the Friday screening, but he had a heckuva time getting him on the phone.

After the two WOH screenings, we got a nice write-up from Joel Elliott in the Morning Sentinel . You can check it out at http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/4095306.html

But both Sheila and I did not have high hopes for the Friday nite screening. It was pretty late for Maine–9:30pm. We ran into two ladies outside the Cafe in Waterville and they were honest about coming “We’re in our jammies by then.” Plus, it had been raining cats and dogs all day.

But when we got to the Rail Road Square Cinema an hour early, the line was already forming and Serena, the site manager, said the phone had been ringing off the hook all day. Sure enough, we sold out and sadly, had to turn away over 40 people. Luckily, we had some DVD’s to sell.

Best of all, Isaiah was finally able to reach Josh, and he came to the screening, where I promptly, and totally by accident, seated him next to Andrew Robinson–the Asst. District Attorney!

Andrew came with friends, including ADA Jim Andrews. Andrew had some very nice comments about the film, and I’m hoping he’ll post them in comments.

Friend Anthony Walton, who had helped out with early rough cut screenings at the Frontier Cafe in December, also made the trip up from Brunswick.

We had a great Q&A afterwards, which I’ll talk about in a following post.

Mike

Well, being stuck in airline terminals for the last 20 hours, I’ve finally decided to get productive, now that Duncan’s done a great job at getting our blog rolling on the website.

The Maine Film Fest finished up on Saturday nite, and all of our screenings were boffo. We started with two last weekend at the Waterville Opera House, the first one with about 75 people and the next one almost triple that number. Both sessions had great audiences with interesting Q&A’s. I’ll say more on the next post–just want to see if this works!

Mike

Our screenings at the Maine Fest are coming up this weekend, and we’re getting excited! Still haven’t been able to reach Josh, but his Aunt Cheryl says she’ll be sure to tell him and she and Larry are bringing a bunch of people to the screening.

Robin and Pat Chase are coming to the Sunday screening–it’ll be great to have them there and see them again. Isaiah’s online, so they’ll be checking out the site soon.

We got a nice blurb in the Times-Record, so all you mid-Coasters are able to read all about us.

And we discovered a great little review on the NY Times movie site. Check it out at http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=395657.

Sheila says to tell you about our new movie, but I say let’s wait.

All for now.

Mike & Sheila

We’re very excited to be part of this year’s Woods Hole Festival. Producer Sheila Canavan will be at the screening and will be available for a Q&A after the screening. For those of you who can’t make it to this festival, but are in New England, Knee Deep will be having three screenings at the Maine Int’l Film Fest in Waterville on July 14, 15, and 20. Check out the fest site for times and locations at www.miff.org

Knee Deep is having a great festival run–we won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at our world premier at the Florida Film Festival in Orlando. And then we had a sold-out screening with a terrific audience at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, NC. The film was also one of only ten films selected from Full Frame to be part of the Emerging Pictures showcase.

Very shortly we’ll be offering DVD’s for sale on our website at www.kneedeepthedoc.com .

A PITCH: We’d also appreciate your visiting the website for The Moenkopi Group,at www.themoenkopigroup.org. Moenkopi is the non-profit group which produced the film. And we’d appreciate it even more if you could make a tax-deductible donation so Moenkopi can keep producing films like this one. You can pay either through your Paypal account or personal credit card. Any amount, no matter how small, would be great.

Looking forward to meeting everyone at the festival–and enjoying some lobster!