Transcription of Motion Pictures, #106
Male: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 State Street, Portland, Maine. Download past shows and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of BOOTH Maine, Apothecary By Design, Premier SportsHealth, a division of Black Bear Medical, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Mike LePage & Beth Franklin of RE/Max Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show #106, airing for the first time on Sunday, September 22, 2013. Today we’ll be talking about motion pictures. Maine is hotspot for artists of every possible persuasion. Motion picture-makers and actors are the latest in a long line of creative individuals who call our state home. Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, get the update on Maine’s own Camden International Film Festival from founder Ben Fowlie, managing director Caroline von Kuhn, and Points North Forum director Sean Flynn, and get a glimpse into the acting life with nationally acclaimed actress/producer Caitlin FitzGerald who hails from Camden Maine.
Chariots of Fire, Pretty in Pink, A Christmas Story, Life as a House. Each of us remembers movies that have claimed pivotal moments in our existence. Each of us remembers movies that reflect stages in our lives. The movies I just mentioned reflect specific stages in mine. When I was growing up, long before the era of the DVD and slightly before personal computing was ubiquitous, movies were a treat. Going to Maine mall cinemas was a significant field trip for my family of 10, a field trip we typically made in smaller groups. When I finally found myself in the shadow of the big screen, time slowed; no longer did I feel the tension of packing small siblings into our Econoline van, no longer did I hear my parents’ admonishments to sit quietly or stop poking one another. Instead, I was fully present, drawn into a story that was simultaneously not my own and exactly my own. When the lights went up, I was a changed human.
Our guests on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour this week recognize the impact of motion pictures on the human psyche. Each has made a commitment to the sustainability of this important art form. Camden International Film Festival founder Ben Fowlie, managing director Caroline von Kuhn, and Points North Forum director Sean Flynn are bringing documentary filmmakers to Maine from all over the world. Camden native actress/producer Caitlin FitzGerald who stars in nationally recognized films and television series. Each of them is contributing to the possibility of pivotal moments in the lives of those who watch their films. Each of them understands that life observed is a life made rich.
We hope you enjoy our motion picture show today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. Thank you for listening.
I always enjoy having guests back in the studio who have been in the studio with me before to see not only what has been going on in their lives but also see what interesting things they continue to do for the state of Maine. Ben Fowlie is one of these individuals who was one of our very early guests on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. He is the founder and director of the Camden International Film Festival. He previously was on with his friend, Jonathan Laurence, the photographer, but today he is solo. Thank you for coming in and joining us.
Ben: Thanks for having me, Lisa.
Lisa: Ben, this is a busy time of year for you; September 26th to the 29th is the Camden International Film Festival, lots going on, but it’s all kind of new and interesting. I think you’re taking things to a whole new level. Talk to me about that.
Ben: Yeah. This is the ninth year of the festival. It’s funny. After every year that we have, we always say, okay, that was great, but let’s try to keep it within scale, like keep it in a place that’s manageable for us. That’s easy to say in October, November, by the time we’re programming. At this point, things kind of always expand, this year in some really exciting ways. Still holding strong to our documentary roots. We’re going to be screening about 80 films, about 35 features, and 45 shorts over the course of the weekend. We’ll also be expanding our conference component, which is part of the program that we call Points North which started about five years ago.
Some really exciting stuff happening that we’ve got a brand-new partnership with The New York Times where we will be doing a pitch session, basically allowing filmmakers to pitch short form content directly to The New York Times. The winning project will eventually end up on their Op-Docs program, which is a phenomenal website you’d want to go check out, mostly culturally relevant issues that The Times can create a dialogue around. Then, playing along that theme, we’re always trying to find ways to enhance community, obviously both locally within the state of Maine but also within the independent film community at large, whether that’s national or international. That’s something that truthfully we’ve struggled as a small organization to figure out how we can expand beyond a four-day event. Our board of directors and myself and our entire staff are really committed to use this festival as a catalyst to engage Maine residents throughout the state over the course of the year to lead up to our 10th anniversary next year.
One thing that’s new is we started an engagement summit which is probably the most exciting thing for me as a programmer of the festival. The idea is basically to use nonfiction media documentary film to engage audiences and communities outside of the festival weekend. Each year, we’ll be specifically taking a topic that will change every year, bringing people in, thought leaders, nonprofit leaders, professionals from the specific theme, and engaging them in ways to figure out how we can create a strategic plan to use media, to engage community, and dialogue.
This year, we’re focusing on the issue of aging. Obviously, it’s a hot-button topic right now in Maine. The Portland Press Herald has a wonderful series going on every other Sunday through their Sunday paper. It’s just been a really rewarding experience to be able to team up with a bunch of different businesses and foundations to further enhance a dialogue that they’ve already started. Obviously, we’re new to the healthcare world, but we also understand that there’s a wonderful way to engage audiences through the films that we screen. Aging will play a big part of the thematic aspect of the films this year.
Lisa: How is that films, and specifically documentary films, have something additional to offer when telling a story over just a straightforward newspaper article?
Ben: That’s a good question. I think that’s probably what draws me to documentary in general. I think it’s the intimacy, the emotional connection that you can have when you’re really watching someone’s story unfold over the course of 60 minutes or 90 minutes or 15 minutes. It doesn’t really matter the length. It’s just the connection that film at its purest form is supposed to take you away from everything that you’re experiencing and just let you get inside the story. I think the documentary especially now, that’s what so great about the form that there are a number of different techniques to draw the viewer in.
This year, obviously, we have films with filmmakers documenting the rapid decline of their mother who has Alzheimer’s. That emotional story about a mother told by their son, that’s something that is just hard to just pick up on in a written piece. We have a film from Denmark; three women who were in hospice that follows the last 14 days of their lives individually. That is obviously very intense at moments, but the intimacy that the filmmaker has with the families that surround these patients and the doctors and watching the women come to terms with the fact that they probably won’t be leaving the space is just at one point heartbreaking but at another point really forces you to consider the weight of these questions. Hopefully, that’s what we’ll be able to do with the summit, just increase dialogue and get it to be more of an open conversation as opposed to closed things that families might not want to talk about because it’s challenging.
I think it’s a great time of year, honestly, because if we can start these conversations and then expand them through screenings in Portland, Orono, Ellsworth, the conversations will be happening over the holidays which is a time when obviously families gather and should be having these conversations.
Lisa: I think I read on your website that the Camden International Film Festival is one of the top 25 small film festivals. I don’t know if this is national or international, but that’s quite an honor. Why is it that your film festival, specifically out of Camden, Maine is of such great interest and such high quality?
Ben: Lists are funny things in a lot of ways. We love it when we get on a list. That list was done by a bunch of probably let’s say 50 industry leaders or whatnot, so distributors, funders, broadcasters and filmmakers. It was just basically a way to gauge the impact that Festivals can have on the professional track of filmmakers. I think why we’ve been getting the recognition that we have, which is phenomenal, I mean if you has asked me five years ago, would we be at this place? Would we be at the level we are at given the size of our community? I would probably say it would be challenging. I’m starting to rethink that over the past couple of years, realizing that the intimacy of the community is our strongest suit. The fact that when you’re in communities like Camden and Rockland and Rockport, just as an example because that’s where we take place, it would be the same in Portland; it would be the same in many of the communities in Maine. It’s just a way that takes people out of their daily existence and out of their New York exhausting life or LA or whatnot.
When they’re here, they’re able to interact with not only a real local audience in a meaningful way but also with fellow filmmakers or fellow industry members. The idea is hopefully that it’s a much more relaxed way to grow your professional network and to walk away with hopefully friendships or stronger relationships. You go to a conference or whatever it is, whatever specific conference it may be, you come back with 10 or 15 business cards and you maybe write to one person and maybe get an email exchange, that last two emails, and then that kind of falls off. For me, I prefer events that you actually have a little bit of time maybe to really connect with people.
At Camden, just by default of it being such a small space, if you run into someone at a screening, chances are you’re going to see him at the coffee shop the next day or at one of the amazing restaurants at night. So you’re just kind of forced to interact and engage in ways that if you go to larger festivals, you might see someone once; they might not even be there, you may never see them.
The other thing I think that’s really helped us out is we’ve really made a conscious effort to try and become like a launching pad for filmmakers who are emerging in the field. Obviously, there’s a lot of wonderful film festivals that are top tier; Sundance, Berlin, Toronto. Those outlets are really great for filmmakers who are established and obviously have made quality films in the past. If we can play a small role in really helping finding newer voices in the forum so that they can get this kind of training-wheels mentality to do a festival, understand what it’s like to interact with industry, to screen your work, hopefully several of those people will go on to make more work and premiere in Berlin or Toronto or Telluride.
Lisa: You’ve been doing this now, this is the ninth film festival. Essentially you’re heading into a decade’s worth of your life which for people who can’t see you, they don’t know that you’re a young guy. This is a big chunk of the entire time you’ve been on this planet, and yet something that you remain passionately invested in. How do you maintain that level of interest, and why is it so important to you?
Ben: That’s a good question. I always circle around it like if I had just gone to that master’s degree or something like that. The truth when I look at this experience, it’s like as educational experience for me as well. I started the project when I had been to a few film festivals. My entire life, I hadn’t really … I had interned or whatnot. I think it was an opportunity to buck the trend of going to LA and interning for somebody else or just the typical route. This just came like an atypical route that may end up going somewhere maybe quicker or ending up at a place I would want to be.
Probably at three or four years in when you have all those kind of like, gees, where is this going, how do you make it sustainable, why am I doing this, what’s the point of this whole thing? Especially when I was at that age where I think a lot of people in their late 20s are trying to figure out what a sustainable path looks like professionally and how to pay the bills and all that stuff. I had a meeting with someone that works in distribution in independent documentaries and they said you’re part of the cycle now. You can’t just remove yourself. That was probably a really overly inflated thing to say at that point because I’m sure if we had not continued that the industry wouldn’t crumble, but that I had carved out this niche as a programmer that is really supportive of independent documentary. There are not many people out there that are so focused on a specific theme or genre of film. That was exciting, I think.
I think that there was an embrace from other programmers who are invested in this, in documentary, as invested as I am. It’s a small community, so it just seemed like it was a way to not only grow professionally but also like … the reason why I do it in Camden is not because you want a community; you want a sense of place, you want to be able to feel like the people you work with are friends in some capacity and that everyone cares about each other and wants to make the best work and is not vengeful or is not whatever. The doc community, I can’t speak in film industry in general but I can only speak and say that the documentary film community internationally is the most embracing, caring community of people. That’s what has probably kept me in it.
Then, the excitement of being able to put together a program that has really no strings attached. We don’t really have a certain sponsor we have to adhere to for programming. There are festivals out there that are owned by one company. That’s been the beauty of being able to just kind of screen what we want to screen, build an audience in Maine that appreciates sometimes challenging work, sometimes experimental work, sometimes straightforward work, just building an audience that really cares about the event and also about this art form.
Female: We’ll return to our program in a moment. On the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we’ve long understood the important link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the subject is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: What do your genes have to do with your relationship with money? Today, I met with a couple who just got back their genetic testing. It turns out one of them has the worry gene. Without going into the science, this means that she has the biochemistry that leads to a tendency to worry. But a relationship with money is not based on feelings as you might expect. She has learned to cope and is motivated based on taking the feeling out of her money decisions. A plan, a list, a recipe, these things work better for her because it allows her to consciously choose to turn off a gene that wants to turn on naturally. Understanding who you are in relationship to money can be empowering in its ability to not just allow you to communicate with yourself but also with others. If you need help assessing what your relationship with money is, send us an email to [email protected] and we’ll help you evolve with your money.
Male: Securities offered through LPL Financial. Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
There was a time when the apothecary was a place where you could get safe, reliable medicines carefully prepared by experienced professionals, coupled with care and attention, focused on you and your unique health concerns. Apothecary By Design is built around the forgotten notion that you don’t just need your prescriptions filled; you need attention, advice, and individualized care. Visit their website, apothecarybydesign.com, or drop by the store at 84 Marginal Way in Portland and experience pharmacy care the way it was meant to be.
Lisa: I have the sense that you aren’t intimated by things that you don’t know or that might seem unreachable to other people. When you look at the sponsor list, every year it is more impressive. You have this affiliation with New York Times. You’re talking about really an international community. I don’t have the sense that you have a small town Maine mentality, but you grew up in the small town of Maine.
Ben: I think that’s the amazing thing about … I had to have had … somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have realized that doing something within the community, especially a community that knows me so well. My dad owns a community store in Camden. He’s owned it for 32 years. Before that, he was involved in state politics, so I grew up with Senator George Mitchell; kind of my idol. I think he was at my seventh birthday. On my mother’s side, her father owned the original Five & Dime in Camden. Both families kind of had businesses in town. Just working at my father’s store, I got to meet a lot of people putting the Sunday papers together and whatnot. It just became one of those things that you realize there’s a wonderful community of people that, like myself, love to live in Camden and Maine in general but also want to feel connected to everything else that’s going on.
I think that line is just getting blurrier and blurrier as time goes on. I think that maybe 10 years ago, it might have felt a little more isolated. Now I feel like everyone I know is traveling and maybe working in New York half the time or whatnot. I think the audience was there really for me to try and expand into what a real international festival could look like. Obviously, the success of Camden Conference and PopTech locally proves that. It just seemed like one of the things that when after the festival got a little bit more stable, after the fifth year maybe, four or five years ago, it was like, well, how big can we make this then? The sky is the limit at this point. People love coming here. The local audiences are really enjoying it. We’ve got great partnerships with the educational systems, with Unity, University of Maine. There’s an impact we’re making here with students and also with local communities. How can we just get Camden on the radar of everyone working in independent documentary film?
That’s just taken a little bit of time, but we’ve managed to just, I think, honestly, just grow just enough organically, never pushing too much so that we’d run into trouble in the sense of keeping the program sustainable or keeping it at a level that is unmanageable. Probably, some of the best advice I could ever give anyone if they’re working in anything really is just not overwhelming yourself too much. It’s really letting your business or your event or whatever it may be kind of form itself over time. Probably the reason why we’re around here is because of that mentality.
We’re not shy in saying I think that we do want to be recognized as one of the top doc fests in North America and internationally for sure. It’s definitely a major call of ours.
Lisa: People know that Camden-Rockport, Rockland are an interesting sort of nidus of energy for artists in general. We have the CMCA. We have the Farnsworth Art Museum. This is documentary filmmaking. We’ve had artists and writers in Maine for generations, but filmmaking is relatively new to the game. How have your fellow artists in the community, including the Maine Media Workshops, which is only really 40 years old, how have they accepted and integrated the work you’re doing with documentary films?
Ben: We’ve had a really good relationship with Farnsworth and Maine Media Workshops since the start. I think we realized early on that the cultural institutions that have been around there for 40 years, 65 this year, Bay Chamber. We’re aligning ourselves in any way we can. Obviously, our partnering into some kind of way is beneficial to our long-term growth. Obviously, there’s an obvious tie-in with Maine Media Workshops. I think it’s been nice because we’ve been able to collaborate in the sense of some of the interactive, the new ways of storytelling that we’re bringing in. It’s attractive to them in what they’re trying to develop throughout their film program as we speak. It’s really engaging a brand-new audience of filmmakers to come to the festival to what they’re doing at the workshops.
The funny thing is we have probably four, five filmmakers that are coming to the festival this year that conceived of their project actually at the workshops three, four, five years ago. We’re trying to highlight that as well because I think that it’s important to note that probably the workshop was involved with a lot of the projects for the people that we’re screening now before they made it, before they hit the big time and whatever it is. I don’t know if I really answered your question. Sorry, I got a little sidetracked.
I think that obviously, this kind of partnership mentality has worked well for us, and, thankfully, there’s just so much great programming going on, especially with Bay Chamber and Manuel, the new artistic director there, that has allowed us to find ways that seem to just work for us thematically. We’re not really … there’s never any kind of like, well, we got to twist this to make it work for this and whatnot. I think the Mid coast area has always wanted a college. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. I think what they do have is this wonderful collection of cultural organizations and institutions to hold these events and stuff. Throughout the year, there’s always something going on that engages you in really, really exciting ways.
Lisa: If I’m not in the community and I’m not necessarily someone who knows that much about documentary filmmaking but I’m kind of interested in coming to the Camden International Film Festival, what are some things that might entice me to make the drive up there?
Ben: That’s a good question. What we always try and say is that it’s still a festival. Documentary films may not be what gets you excited when you get out of bed, but I guarantee you, the greatest thing about I think our organization that I’ve seen over the past few years is that it’s so inclusive. For $10, you can go see a movie. If that’s how you want to go in and be a part of the festival, that’s great. We have pass structures, whatever, that allow you to get in to the films and the parties or whatnot. We really always made an effort to keep it an event that is going to, this goes in with programming as well, it’s going to incorporate as many different aspects of the community as we can. That’s just something that we’re committed to and will continue to be committed to. We’re holding venues in three different communities this year; Camden, Rockport this year is new, and Rockland. So really just trying to expand our blueprint.
Getting back to the question, I think that come see a film, come see two films, but it’s a beautiful weekend on the coast. There’s a number of wonderful restaurants, several of which just opened up like Ann Marie’s new Salt Water Farm at Union Hall. We’re trying to program our schedule so that as a visitor, you can just dip in to the festival as much or as little as you want but also get the experience of whether it’s outdoor activities or the food scene up there which is incredible. Documentary is just one way to pull you in hopefully.
For people that like to have a good time, we have some really unique venues for party spots, which I think are exciting because we totally transform these spaces that no one ever goes to. Half the venues we use are just abandoned throughout the year. There’s always this excitement I think of what’s going to happen. Most of the people that come actually you see in the lines over and over and over again, or you’ll see at three screenings and a party. I always judge the quality of the festival with how many people afterwards that said “oh, they had such a good time. I just was so rundown on Monday, I had to take the day off from work” or whatever it is. To me, that’s a good line. It is this consuming thing because I think that you’re constantly connecting with community and meeting with people in a different way.
Lisa: What’s the website for the Camden International Film Festival?
Ben: It’s www.camdenfilmfest.org. You can find information there about passes, which we’re actually running an early bird special through the end of this … actually, this won’t be broadcast by then. Our program should be up there as well. Any other information should be able to be found there. Our Facebook page, you can get from there as well which is probably the most up to date information on the event.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Ben Fowlie. Again, thank you for coming back in again for a second time to sit with us. Ben is the founder and director of the Camden International Film Festival, now on its ninth year. Congratulations and I know that you’re going to have many more.
Ben: Thank you so much, Lisa. It’s always fun to be here.
Female: We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work-life to the same extent that we do and fully embrace every day. As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth of BOOTH from BOOTH Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: A good movie can really take you places, a few hours of escape that can make you laugh, cry, scream, or just leave you wondering. From where I sit, it’s not that different when you dig into your financials. Looking at the numbers and projections can make you laugh, but the worst is when they make you cry. If you have a solid financial plan in place, think of it as your script, then the movie of your successful business will be a box office hit. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage & Beth Franklin of RE/Max Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/Max Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
Using recycled sails collected from sailors and sailing communities around the world, Sea Bags designs and manufactures bags, totes and accessories in Maine, on Portland’s working waterfront. From the best-selling classic Navy Anchor Tote to fresh new designs, Sea Bags offers retired sails another life by turning them into handmade one-of-a-kind nautical-inspired pieces. Please visit the Sea Bags store in Portland or Freeport, or go to www.seabags.com to browse their unique collection.
Lisa: One of our original Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast shows was about the Camden International Film Festival. We’re now 106 episodes in, and we’ve brought the Camden International Film Festival back to talk to us about what’s been happening recently. Today in the studio, we have with us Caroline von Kuhn, who is the managing director of the Camden International Film Festival and also Sean Flynn, who is the director of the Points North Forum. Thanks for coming in and being with us today.
Caroline: Thanks for having us.
Sean: Thanks.
Lisa: These are impressive titles. I hope I got them correct. I know this is a big part of what you’ve been working on these days.
Sean: Yeah. Always, this time of year I think is when we really start kicking into higher gear. Our big program announcements are coming some time next week. Then, once that programming part of our job is done, then it’s really just about following through and making the event happen. Yeah, a lot of anticipation in the office I should say.
Caroline: Ben and Sean are locking the final program. Sean is working on the Points North Documentary Forum which brings six filmmakers to come pitch their idea of a film, their work in progress film in front of a really high caliber industry that we bring in from New York and LA who beg to return to Camden each year, their film up with the festival, their film up Maine, the experience of it. The next two weeks, they’re kind of locking the final; Ben is locking the films that are playing. It’s an exciting time and it all comes together and then we just get it to happen.
Lisa: Why Maine? There are lots of film festivals out there. I know, Sean, you are from Massachusetts. Caroline, from what I understand, you’re from a lot of different places, but came to Maine. What’s the draw?
Sean: For me, I grew up in Massachusetts, so I’ve always had a little bit of a connection to Maine and New England generally. I spent a lot of summers camping and hiking up here. In my 20s, I got into producing documentaries and I was working for a production company out of Boston called Principle Pictures. I started to make feature length films and toured around the festivals. The first film I worked on premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and went on to screen in a lot of different venues, so it opened me up to this whole world of film festivals generally. At some point, it was actually after that film had its run, I heard about this little festival in a tiny town up in Maine. I heard about it through a lot of other people in the industry. It just had this incredibly good reputation for screening great work, just being in a beautiful place, being a really amazing experience for filmmakers.
It wasn’t too long after that actually that I just met Ben by chance through some mutual friends of ours who are also Maine-based filmmakers. So for a while, it was just kind of Ben and I struck up a friendship. He was living in Summerville at the time, pretty much down the street from where I was. Then, eventually, there came an opportunity. I was transitioning out of my job in this production company. Around the same time, they were looking for somebody to head up the forum aspect of the festival. It was an ideal fit and I just jumped right into it. That was a little over two years ago.
For me, my relationship with Maine has really deepened through working for the festival. Each summer, I’ve been coming up for more and more and spending more time here, getting to know the community more. Having been to a lot of festivals around the world, it’s an ideal location in a lot of ways. For the filmmakers and for us as festival organizers, the community is so incredibly supportive. It’s just such a spectacularly beautiful place. You’ve got great venues. You’ve got great culture that kind of surrounds the festival. In some ways, I think our jobs are easy compared to a lot of festival programmers because we have such great resources at our disposal. I really fell in love with the area much more so in the last few years.
We’ve said this in other interviews. This festival would not have reached the heights and that reputation that it has acquired in the film industry if it wasn’t for the support of the community and the area itself.
Caroline: I strongly agree with that. My day job was with the Tribeca Film Festival and I was assistant directing theater on the side and I did a production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler located in Australia who’s from Camden. We’ve hit it off. He’s the director. I went to the Middle East to produce for Tribeca in Doha, Qatar. When I came back, Caitlin had dinner with about there were six women who had all worked together and said let’s make a movie in Maine. I said no, I’m a theater person. I don’t want to make this sort of film, and then I had two more drinks and agreed to make a film with her. We started off, we just wanted to teach ourselves filmmaking and we knew that we would do it in Maine. I knew of Camden because my mother had studied at the Maine Photographic Workshops at the time, now Maine Media Workshops. I knew the area just through that and having visited.
When we would set out to be just a small short film where we taught ourselves this craft which we knew from other areas, not as director or writers, coming to Camden and the generous, smart community that really allowed us to make a film and for it to evolve into this feature film that it did. I could not have directed my first feature anywhere else. Also, just the cinematic beauty that was at our disposal. I would have to mess up pretty badly to at least not have a beautiful film if nothing else. The sophisticated, smart, local audience made me understand why Camden International Film Festival which I had heard about through Tribeca and Film Society work had the reputation that it did.
In the spring when I was at Tribeca before I came up here when producers and distributors asked, what are you doing after the festival? I very sheepishly because I was very naïve and not qualified to say I was making a film, but they are making a film in Maine and they say “you must meet Ben Fowlie. You have to know about CIFF”. His reputation grew infinitely. Then, when I came up the next year to attend the festival as an audience member and to really experience the Points North Documentary Forum, it exceeded every very high expectation that I had. I feel lucky to be able to join Ben and Sean in that.
Lisa: Caroline, how can people find out about engagement, about the Points North Forum, about the Camden International Film Festival in its entirety?
Caroline: Please visit our website at camdenfilmfest.org. You can find the lineup of films and all the industry delegates who are coming. We have really exciting panels going on this year, really exciting conversations with leaders coming from all over. Get your passes and come join us next weekend.
Lisa: It’s been a pleasure to speak with the two of you, esteemed managing director of the Camden International Film Festival, Caroline von Kuhn, and also Sean Flynn, director of the Points North Forum with the Camden International Film Festival. Thank you for spending time with me today.
Caroline: Thank you so much for having us.
Sean: Thanks so much.
Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: When one enters a nature preserve or a secluded wooded area, we often think that we are the observer. Have you ever thought that upon entering such a space that we are in fact the observed? A thousand eyes are looking upon us. We can choose to see the natural world through hard eyes or soft eyes. Hard eyes make us separate from nature and also from other people. Soft eyes connect us to nature and to people around us. We welcome and observe the world around us with a sense of awe through this vision. It is as if we are seeing the world around us for the very first time. It is a fresh and new look.
I think that in landscaping, in working with land and landscape, one of the things I really try to do is have a great, deep reverence and respect for the natural world, and I try to bring that journey to my clients as we work together in designing and creating a landscape.
I’m Ted Carter. If you’d like to contact me, I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Male: We’ll return to our program after acknowledging the following generous sponsors: Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. At Orthopedic Specialists, ultrasound technology is taken to the highest degree. With state-of-the-art ultrasound equipment, small areas of tendonitis, muscle and ligament tears, instability and arthritic conditions can be easily found during examination. For more information, visit orthocareme.com or call (207) 781-9077.
Female: We at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour know that our listeners understand the importance of health of the mind, body, and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body are Travis Beaulieu and Jim Greatorex of Premier SportsHealth, a division of Black Bear Medical.
Travis: Jim, you pull those socks up any higher and I’m pretty sure I’m not hanging out with you anymore.
Jim: Travis, they’re compression socks, you know, like the medical ones, only they’re for athletes.
Travis: So now you’re calling yourself an athlete? This keeps getting better.
Jim: They actually work. They increase blood flow in your legs by as much as 40 percent, and you know what that does.
Travis: Let me guess. It allows you to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
Jim: No. They allow more oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to my muscles which reduces muscle fatigue and allows me to train harder; plus, I’m not as sore after those long runs, and they also flush out lactic acid and keep my feet cool and dry. Of course, they’re stylish.
Travis: Jim, I’m actually wearing some right now. I wear them every day even when I’m not training. I noticed a huge difference in how my legs feel. But, Jim?
Jim: Yes, Travis?
Travis: I actually am wearing pants over mine since we are in the office.
Jim: Hey, it pays to advertise.
Travis: I suppose it would. Maybe you ought to promise the listeners that if they strut down to our store in 275 Marginal Way in Portland, they can see firsthand what this compression apparel looks like, or they could visit blackbearmedical.com and read up a little more.
Jim: That’s a great idea. Come by 275 Marginal Way location today or visit us at blackbearmedical.com and see our entire line of compression apparel and other sports medicine equipment. Life can be a bear. Attack it with Black Bear Medical.
Lisa: Many little girls when they’re growing up think to themselves, I think I’d like to be an actress. The individual who’s sitting across the microphone from me today actually went ahead and became an actress and in fact a nationally and internationally known actress. This is Caitlin FitzGerald who is an actress and a writer and a filmmaker who is from Camden, Maine originally. Thank you for coming in and spending time with us.
Caitlin: My pleasure.
Lisa: I must say when I knew you were coming on the show, I went back and I looked at all the various things that you’ve been in. I think my 17-year-old is going to be very impressed because, of course, you have the Gossip Girl connection. I am also astounded by the range of things that you’ve worked on. Masters of Sex hasn’t even come out yet on Showtime, but that’s an interesting and ambitious project.
Caitlin: It is an interesting and ambitious project. Yeah, we’re very excited and hopeful, as you say. It comes out the 29th of September. My hope actually is that it’s sort of controversial because I think it’s an interesting and hopefully stimulating in more than one way topic that will get people talking and conversing about this subject.
Lisa: Masters of Sex is about Masters and Johnson. They were the individuals originally who did the sex studies way back when. You play Mrs. Masters, which is interesting because Masters and Johnson, they eventually got together.
Caitlin: They did. They had a longstanding affair, and actually one of the stipulations for Masters hiring Johnson as his partner in the work was that she sleep with him as part of the science experiment of course. Historically, my character’s name is Libby Masters, became very close friends with Virginia Johnson, so there was this strange kind of love triangle that formed between the three of them.
Lisa: The work that you do from what I can tell is very relationship-based.
Caitlin: Yeah, that’s very accurate. I haven’t thought about that, but that’s true.
Lisa: While I was watching Newlyweds yesterday, it’s funny because I had just watched it not too long ago before I knew who you were and then I said, oh, I’m going to go watch this and oh, I just watched this. That was an interesting commentary on relationships and what it means to be in a long-term relationship. First of all, tell us a little bit about Newlyweds and tell us how this has impacted you as an individual.
Caitlin: Newlyweds is one of those movies. We made it for … we shot it for $10,000 and it was sort of barebones crew. It was mostly me and Ed Burns and RDP and a sound guy who also is a producer. We’d get together. We shot it over the course of three months whenever we had free time, and we shot it around Tribeca in restaurants and in friends’ apartments, and it felt so intimate when we were shooting it. Eddie had a script, but he would also let us improvise. It was developed as we went along. He wrote it as we went, depending on what we had found when we were shooting. It has to me a really natural and authentic feel about it. People come up to me all the time and say that they’ve seen it and they love it. I think part of it is it feels … the first conversation in the film is about how I think either my character or Eddie says I read once that if you don’t turn over and look at your partner at least once a month and think, who are you, I’ve made a terrible mistake, there’s actually something wrong with your relationship. I think most movies portray relationships as being these fairy tales. What’s interesting about Newlyweds is we start where most movies end, which is right after the wedding. It’s kind of like how it actually goes.
Lisa: There was a messiness to it. You have his half sister who has her romantic issues; comes back to New York, finds out that her former lover is now married with a child on the way. Then, you have your sister and she’s going through a divorce from her husband of like 19 years or something like that. It is. It’s just the messiness, and people moving in and out of the apartment that you’re sharing.
Caitlin: Yeah. And that when you marry someone, they come with a lot of baggage, and how do you negotiate that? How does it affect your interaction with your partner? It’s something we don’t talk about very much in movies I think.
Lisa: You’ve had the chance to work with relationships of a different sort and more specifically the friendship relationship. Most recently, you co-wrote and starred in a film called “Like the Water”, and it had everything to do with a friendship you had with Sabrina Seelig who died not too long ago but at a fairly young age and in a fairly tragic way. You’re young to have had to deal with that sort of thing. Talk to me a little bit about that situation.
Caitlin: Sabrina died I think four weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, and we’d been friends since we were 11 and 12. I think the experience of losing someone, especially your contemporary when you’re that young, for me, it felt like a veil had kind of been lifted on what the world really was. I’ve been living in a place of naïveté whereby we all got to live forever. Certainly, Sabrina, for me, was one of those people that I just … it was so assumed that I would know her my whole life. It was incredibly disruptive to my sense of reality. A few years after her death, I was having dinner with a group of friends and we were talking about collaborating on something and decided we wanted to make a movie in Maine, in my hometown of Camden.
Caroline von Kuhn, my co-writer, and I started talking, and she had similarly lost a friend, a best friend at a young age. We decided that it was a unique enough experience that it can be interesting to write about that. Also, that female friendships don’t often get explored in cinema and it feels like a big gap for me. We have a lot of male buddy films but not a whole lot about how meaningful those female relationships are, especially when you’re growing up and discovering who you are. Certainly, Sabrina is kind of knit into my DNA in this way. It seemed very appropriate to shoot it in Maine in locations where we shot at the elementary school where we met and we shot all over my hometown. It couldn’t have been more perfect in that way.
Lisa: Do you think that this film has helped you heal in some way?
Caitlin: I think one of the biggest gifts of being an artist is that you get to use the drama that happened to you and the triumphs that happened to you. You have a place to put them, I guess, into the world. You can make something out of them instead of just holding them. I will miss Sabrina forever. I will write about her forever. It was nice to be able to think about her and honor her and make something that I could hold in my hands about her.
Lisa: This is an interesting birthday year for you.
Caitlin: It is indeed.
Lisa: I won’t say what birthday it is.
Caitlin: I’m not ashamed. I am turning 30.
Lisa: Well, I remember when I was turning 30, and this was a little while ago, and I didn’t think it would hit me the way as hard it did. I wasn’t ashamed of it, but it just felt like a very big dividing line between sort of I knew I wasn’t in childhood anymore because by that time, I had some children and I was a doctor. It felt like something that I was crossing over.
Caitlin: Yeah, totally.
Lisa: Feel that way to you?
Caitlin: Yeah. I had a boyfriend in my mid 20s who was a few years older than me and we had this ongoing joke that when you turn 30, suddenly life was easy and felt really relaxed about everything and you had everything in perspective. I think that’s obviously not entirely true, but I do think there is a certain amount. You’re all laughing. I do think there is something, and I can feel it actually in this transitional sudden returns kind of moment of your 20s are hard and you go through a huge growth that is often uncomfortable. You make a lot of mistakes. I think, I hope, that my 30s are a time of kind of reaping the benefits of all that education.
Lisa: I know it’s not easy to be an actress. I think that’s probably an understatement.
Caitlin: Yeah. True.
Lisa: It’s something that requires a lot. It requires the ability to be rejected, I assume. I assume that you’ve had some rejections.
Caitlin: Lots and lots and lots and lots of rejection.
Lisa: How do you keep showing up and saying, you know what, I’m really passionate about this? I really still want to be an actress and I know that I have what it takes.
Caitlin: Well, I say I’ve had lots of rejection, but I’ve also had enough success to stay in the game and to feel like I’m in the right kind of place. I would recommend this for every actor out there that making your own work is vital and puts the agency of your life back in your own hands in a way, so you’re not turning overall all your power to other people’s whims. You find your communities. I’m part of a theater company in New York. They’re really wonderful and I do stuff with them. You find your people who can reflect back to you that you are in fact an artist and good at what you do even when it gets hard.
Lisa: Caitlin, how can people find out about the work that you’ve done, not only the feature that you created, “Like the Water”, but also Masters of Sex and all the other, Gossip Girls, Newlyweds, all the other movies that you’ve been in.
Caitlin: Well, you can go to my IMDb page which has all of my work. Like the Water, you can find on a website called Seed&Spark; that is a distribution and fundraising platform for Indie films that our producer actually launched following our movie, and it’s doing very well. It’s very exciting. Masters of Sex airs 10 PM on the 29th of September on Showtime following Homeland.
Lisa: We started this interview by saying many little girls dream of being an actress. Not every little girl becomes one. What advice do you have for little girls out there in Maine who are thinking this might be in their future?
Caitlin: Surround yourself with people who keep you really grounded and who really love you no matter what success or failure you have. Figure out what stories matter the most to your heart and tell them as loudly as you can.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Caitlin FitzGerald, actress, writer, and native of Camden Maine. We really appreciate your coming in and spending time with us today, Caitlin.
Caitlin: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, Show #106, “Motion Pictures”. Our guests have included Ben Fowlie, Caitlin FitzGerald, Caroline von Kuhn, and Sean Flynn. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well-being on the Bountiful blog. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast to you each week.
This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Motion Picture show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of BOOTH Maine, Apothecary By Design, Premier SportsHealth, a division of Black Bear Medical, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Mike LePage & Beth Franklin of RE/Max Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street in Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Leanne Ouimet. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org.