Motion Pictures, #106

Ben Fowlie:

It was a way to not only grow professionally, but also like the reason why I do it in Camden. 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 kind of cares about each other and wants to make the best work. The documentary film community internationally is like the most embracing, caring community of people. So that's what's probably kept me in it.

Caroline von Kuhn:

The sophisticated, smart local audience made me understand why Camera Camden International Film Festival, which I had heard about through my Tribeca and Film Society work, had the reputation that it did and it exceeded every very high expectation that I had.

[Unidentified voice]:

I heard about this little festival in a tiny town up in Maine, heard about it through a lot of other people in the industry. You know, it just had this incredibly good reputation for screening great work, just being in a beautiful place, being a really amazing experience for filmmakers.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Surround yourself with people who keep you really grounded and and who really love you no matter what success or failure you have. And figure out what stories matter the most to your heart and tell them as loudly as you can.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show Number 106, airing for the first time on Sunday, September 22, 2013. Today we'll be talking about motion pictures. Maine is a 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 Fowley, Managing director Carolyn Von Kuhne 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 mind. 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 main 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 recognized 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 Fowley, managing director Carolyn Von Kuhn and Points North Forum director Sean Flynn are bringing documentary filmmakers to Maine from all over the Camden native. Actress producer Caitlin Fitzgerald 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 pictures show Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. Thank you for listening.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 Fowley is one of these individuals. He 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 Lawrence, the photographer, but today he is solo. Thank you for coming in and joining us.

Ben Fowlie:

Thanks for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Ben, this is a busy time of year for you. September 26th through 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. So talk to me about that.

Ben Fowlie:

Yeah, well, this is the ninth year of the festival and you know, 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, keep it in a place that's manageable for us. That's easy to say in October, November, by the time we're programming. And 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 features, excuse me, 80 films, about 35 features and 45 shorts over the course of the weekend. And we'll also be expanding our conference component, which is part of the program that we call Points north, which was started about five years ago. And some really exciting stuff happening there. We've got a brand new partnership with the New York Times where we'll 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 OpDocs program, which is a phenomenal website. I urge everyone to go check out mostly culturally relevant issues that the Times can kind of create a dialogue around and then kind of 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. And that's something that, you know, truthfully, we struggled as a small organization to figure out how we can expand beyond a four day event. And our board of directors and myself and our entire staff are really committed to to spend use this festival as a catalyst to engage Maine residents throughout the state over the course of the year to kind of lead up to our 10th anniversary next year. So one thing that's new is we've started an engagement summit, which is probably the most exciting thing for me as a programmer of the festival. And the idea is basically to use nonfiction media, documentary film to engage audiences and communities outside of the festival weekend. So 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 kind of create a strategic plan to use media to engage community and dialogue. And 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. And 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 the 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. So aging will play a Big part of the thematic aspect of the films this year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How is it that films, and specifically documentary films, have something additional to offer when telling a story over just a straightforward newspaper article?

Ben Fowlie:

That's a good question. And 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 like the connection that, you know, film is at its. At its purest form, supposed to kind of take you away from everything that you're experiencing and just kind of let you get inside the story. And I think the documentary, especially now, that's what's so great about the form, that there are. There's a number of different techniques to draw the viewer in. So this year, obviously, we have films with filmmakers documenting the, you know, the rapid decline of their mother who has Alzheimer's. I mean, that emotional story, you know, story about a mother, you know, told by their son, that's something that is just hard to sometimes pick up on in a written piece. We have a film from Denmark. Three women who are in hospice. The last 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 this space is just, at one point heartbreaking, but at another point really forces you to consider the weight of these questions. And so, hopefully, that's what we'll be able to do with this summit. Just kind of increase dialogue and get it to be more of an open conversation as opposed to, you know, kind of closed, you know, things families might not want to talk about because it's challenging. And we're specifically, you know, I think it's a great time of year, honestly, because if we can. If we can start these conversations and then, you know, expand them through screenings in Portland and Orono, Ellsworth, you know, the conversations will be happening over the holidays, which is a time when obviously families gather and, you know, should be having these conversations.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 Fowlie:

Yeah. Lists are funny things in a lot of ways. We love when we get on a list. That list was done by a bunch of Probably, I'd say, 50 industry leaders or whatnot. So distributors, funders, broadcasters, and filmmakers. And it was just basically a way to gauge the impact festivals can have on the professional track of filmmakers. And I think, you know, why we've been getting the recognition that we have, which is phenomenal. I mean, if you had asked me five years ago, would we be at this place? You know, would we be at the level we are at, given the size of our community, I would probably say it would be challenging. But I'm starting to rethink that over the past couple years, realizing that the actual, you know, the intimacy of the community is our strongest suit. So 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 Portland, it would be the same in, you know, in many of the communities in Maine, there's just such this way that kind of takes people out of their daily existence and out of their New York, you know, exhausting life or LA or whatnot. So when they're here, they're able to kind of interact with not only a real local audience in a meaningful way, but also with fellow filmmakers or fellow industry members. So the idea is, hopefully that it's a much more relaxed way to. To grow your professional network and to walk away with, hopefully, friendships or, you know, stronger, stronger relationships than. I mean, we all go. You go to a conference or whatever it is, whatever, you know, whatever specific conference it may be, you come back with 10 or 15 business cards and you maybe write to one person and, you know, maybe you have like a email exchange that lasts two emails, and then that kind of falls off. And for me, I prefer events that you actually have a little bit of time maybe to really connect with people. So at Camden, you know, 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 them 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, you know, if you go to larger festivals, you might see someone once or you might not even be there, and you may never see them. So 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, idfa, Berlin, Toronto. And those outlets are really great for filmmakers who are established and obviously have made quality films in the past. And if we can play a small role in really helping finding newer voices in the form so that they can kind of get this kind of training wheels mentality. Come to 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 at Berlin or Toronto or Telluride.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been doing this now, this is the 9th film festival. This is, you know, 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. I mean, this is a big chunk of the entire time you've been on this planet. And yet it's something that you remain passionately invested in. How do you maintain that level of interest and why is it so important to you?

Ben Fowlie:

Yeah, that's a good question. I always joke around, I'm like, wow, if I'd just gone for that master's degree or something like that. And I think that this is like, truthfully, I look at this experience as like, as an educational experience for me as well. I mean, I started the project when I'd been to a few film festivals in my entire life. I hadn't really interned or whatnot. And I think it was an opportunity to kind of buck the trend of going to LA and interning for somebody else, or just the typical route. And this just seemed like an atypical route that may end up going somewhere maybe quicker, or ending up at a place I would want to be. And probably three or four years in when you have all those kind of like, geez, where's this going? How do you make it sustainable? Why am I doing this? What's the, 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 the actual, what a sustainable path looks like professionally, how to pay the bills and all that stuff. I had a meeting with someone that works in distribution and independent documentaries and they said, you're part of this cycle now. You can't just remove yourself. And that was probably a really overly inflated thing to say at that point, because I'm sure if we had, you know, not continued that the industry wouldn't crumble but that I had kind of like carved out this, you know, niche as a programmer that is really supportive of independent documentary. There's not many people out there that do, you know, that are so focused on a specific theme or genre of film. And, you know, that was kind of exciting, I think. I think that there was an embrace to. From other programmers who are invested in this documentary, as invested as I am. And it's a small community, so it just seemed like it was a way to not only grow professionally, but also the reason why I do it in Camden. 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 everyone kind of cares about each other and wants to make the best work and is not vengeful or is not whatever. And the doc community, I can't speak on film industry, you know, in general, but I can. I can only speak say that the documentary film community internationally is like the most embracing, you know, caring community of people. So it's. It's. That's what's probably kept me in it. And, you know, then just the excitement of. 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, and there are festivals out there that are owned by one company. And it's been a beauty of being able to just kind of screen what we want to screen. Build an audience in Maine that appreciates, you know, sometimes challenging work, sometimes experimental work, sometimes straightforward work, but, you know, just building an audience that really cares about the event and also about this art form.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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[Unidentified voice]:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have the sense that you aren't intimidated by things that you don't know or that might seem unreachable to other people. I mean, when you look at the sponsor list every year, it is more impressive. You have this affiliation with the New York Times. I mean, you're talking about really an international community. I don't have the sense that you have sort of a small town, Maine mentality. But you grew up in a small town in Maine.

Ben Fowlie:

Yeah, well, I think that's the amazing thing about, you know, I mean, I had to have had. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have realized that doing something within the community, especially the community that knows. Knows me so well. My dad owns a convenience store in Camden. He's owned it for 30. I'm 32. He's owned it for 32 years. Before that, he was involved in state politics. So I grew up with, you know, with George Mitchell, Senator Mitchell. It's kind of my idol. I think he was at my seventh birthday and on my mother's side, they, her father owned the original five and dime in Camden. So both, both families kind of had, you know, had businesses in town. So just working at my father's store, I got to meet a lot of people putting the Sunday papers together and whatnot. And, you know, 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. And I think that that line is just getting blurrier and blurrier as, you know, as time goes on. I Mean, I think that maybe 10 years ago it might have felt a little bit more isolated. Now I feel like everyone I know is traveling and maybe working in New York half the time or whatnot. So I think that the audience was there really for me to kind of try and expand into what a. A real international festival could look like. And obviously the success of Camden Conference and Poptech locally proves that. So it just seemed like one of the things that, you know, when I, after the festival got a little bit more stable over, you know, after the fifth year, maybe four or five years ago, it was like, well, how. How big can we make this then if, you know, the sky's 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. Now, how can we just get Camden on the radar of everyone working in independent documentary film? And 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, you know, so that we could. We run into trouble in the sense of keeping the program sustainable or keeping it at a level that is unmanageable. So I think that's been. And then it probably went to. Some of the best advice I could ever give anyone is if they're working in anything, really, it's just not overwhelming yourself too much, just really, you know, letting your business or your event or whatever it may be kind of, you know, form itself over time. And probably the reason why we're around here is because of that mentality. But, you know, we're not shy in saying, I think that we, we do want to be, you know, recognized as one of the. One of the top, top doc fests in North America and, and then internationally for sure. It's definitely a major goal of ours.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

People know that Camden, Rockport, Rockland is sort of 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 your. The work you're doing with documentary films?

Ben Fowlie:

We've had a good, a really good relationship with Farnsworth and Main Media Workshops since the start, truthfully. I Mean, I think we realized early on that the cultural institutions that have been around there for 40 years, 65, I think Farnsworth is 65 this year. Bay Chamber, they're, you know, aligning ourselves in any way we can, obviously, or partnering in some kind of way is beneficial to our long term growth. Obviously there's an obvious tie in with the main media workshops. But I think it's been nice because I think they we've been able to collaborate in the sense of some of the interactive, the new ways of storytelling that we're bringing in is attractive to them and what they're trying to develop throughout their film program as we speak. And it's really engaging a new, brand new audience of filmmakers who come to the festival to what they were doing at the workshops. You know, the funny thing is we have probably four or five filmmakers that are coming to the festival this year that conceived of their project actually at the workshops, you know, three, four, five years ago. So we're trying to highlight that as well. Because I think that it's important to note that probably the workshops was involved with a lot of the projects or the people that, that we're screening now before they made it, before they had hit the big time or whatever it is. So I don't know if I really answered your question. Sorry, I get a little sidetracked. But 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 BAE Chamber and Manuel, the new artistic director there, that it's allowed us to kind of find ways that seem to just work for us thematically. And we're not really, there's never any kind of like, well, we gotta twist this to make it work for this and whatnot. It all, you know, I think the Mid coast area's always wanted kind of like this college. You know, I'm sure you've heard about that. And I think that what they do have is this wonderful kind of collection of cultural organizations and institutions that hold these events and stuff. So throughout the year, there's always something going on that engages you in really, really exciting ways.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

If I'm out 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 Fowlie:

Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I mean, what we always try and say is that it's still A festival. You know, I mean, 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 is so inclusive. It's, you know, for $10, you can go see a movie, and if that's how you want to go into it and be a part of the festival, that's great. You know, we have past structures, whatever, that, you know, that allow you get into the films and then the parties or whatnot. But we've really always made an effort to keep, you know, keep it an event that is going to, you know, and this goes in with programming as well. It's going to incorporate as many different factions of the community as we can. And that's just something that I think, you know, we're committed to and will continue to be committed to. But, you know, we're holding venues in three different communities this year. Camden, Rockport. This year is new in Rockland. So really just trying to expand our blueprint. But getting back to the question, I think that, you know, 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 Anne Marie's new saltwater farm at Union Hall. We're trying to program our schedule so that there are, you know, as a visitor, you can just dip in to the festival as much or as low as you want, but also get the experience of, you know, whether it's outdoor activities or, you know, the food scene up there, which is incredible. You know, there's. There's documentary is just one way to pull you in, hopefully. And for people that like to, you know, have a good time, we do. 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. I mean, half the venues we use are just abandoned, you know, throughout the year. So there's always this excitement, I think, of what. What's going to happen, you know, and most of the people that come actually, you know, you see in the lines over and over and over again, or you'll see at three screenings in a party. And, you know, I always judge the quality of the festival with how many people afterwards said, it's such a good time. I just was so run down on Monday, I had to take the day off from work or whatever it is. To me, that's like, that's a good buy in, you know, people. It is just consuming thing because I think that you're constantly connecting with community and meeting with people in a different way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So Ben, what's the website for the Camden International film festival?

Ben Fowlie:

It's www.camdenfilmfest.org and you can find information there about passes which we're actually running an early bird special through the end of this actually this will be broadcast and our program should be up there as well and 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.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Ben Fowley 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 in its ninth year. Congratulations and I know that you're going to have many more.

Ben Fowlie:

Thank you so much Lisa. Always fun to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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[Unidentified voice]:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 Kuhne, 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 von Kuhn:

Thanks for having us.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, 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.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, always. This time of year, I think, is when we really start kicking into high gear. Our big program announcements are coming sometimes next week. And then, you know, once that's kind of, once that programming part of our job is done, then it's really just about following through and making the event happen. So, yeah, a lot of anticipation in the audience, in the office, I should say.

Caroline von Kuhn:

Ben and Sean are locking the final program. Sean working on the Points North Forum, which brings Points North Documentary Forum, which brings six filmmakers to come pitch their idea of a film, their work in progress film in front of really high caliber industry that we bring in from New York and la, who kind of beg to return to Camden each year. They fall in love with the festival, they fall in love with Maine, the experience of it. So in the next two weeks, they're kind of locking the final. Ben's locking the films that are playing and it's an exciting time. It all kind of comes together and then we just get it to happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So why Maine? This is, I mean, there's lots of film festivals out there. And I know, Sean, you are from Massachusetts. Caroline, from what I understand, you're from a lot of different places, but you came to Maine. What's the draw?

[Unidentified voice]:

I mean, for me, you know, 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. But when I, you know, in my 20s, I got into producing documentaries and I was working for a production company out of Boston called Principal Pictures and, you know, started to make feature length films and tour them around to festivals. The first film I worked on premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and went on to screen in a lot of different venues. So kind of opened me up to this whole world of film festivals generally. And at some point, it was actually after that film kind of had its run, I heard about this little festival in a tiny Town up in Maine and heard about it through a lot of other people in the industry. You know, it just had this incredibly good reputation for screening great work, just being in a beautiful place, being a really amazing experience for filmmakers. And it wasn't too long after that, actually, that I just kind of met Ben by chance through some mutual friends of ours who are also main based filmmakers. And. And yeah, and then it was, you know, so for a while I was just kind of. Ben and I struck up a friendship and he was living in Somerville at the time, pretty much down the street from where I was. And then eventually there came an opportunity. I was kind of transitioning out of my job in this production company and around the same time, they were looking for somebody to head up the forum aspect of the. Of the festival. And it was kind of an ideal fit and I just jumped right into it. And that was a little over two years ago. And so, yeah, I mean, for me, you know, my. My kind of relationship has with Maine has really deepened through working for the festival. And each summer I've been coming up more and more and spending more time here, getting to know the community more. And it's really, you know, 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 know, you've got great venues, you've got great culture that kind of surrounds the festival. So. So, yeah, I mean, you know, 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. So, yeah, I mean, I just, I really fell in love with the area, you know, much more so in the last few years. And yeah, I mean, I think we've said this in other interviews. I think the festival would not have reached kind of the heights and that. That kind of reputation that it. That it's acquired in the film industry if it wasn't for the support of the community and just, you know, the area itself.

Caroline von Kuhn:

So I strongly agree with that. I was. My day job was at the Tribeca Film Festival and I was assistant directing theater on the side. And I did a production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler where Caitlin Fitzgerald, who's from Camden, played Hedda. We kind of hit it off as actor, director. And I went to the Middle east to produce for Tribeca in Doha, in Doha, Qatar. And 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, and let's make a movie in Maine. And I said, no, that's. I'm a theater person. I don't want to make film. I just want to serve film. And then I had two more drinks and agreed to make a film with her. And what started off, we just wanted to teach ourselves filmmaking, and we knew that we would do it in Maine. And I knew of Camden because my mother had studied at the main photographic workshops at the time, now main media workshops. And so I knew the area just through that and having visited, but 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 writers, stepping, 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, was 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. And just, yeah. The sophisticated, smart, local audience made me understand why Camden International Film Festival, which I had heard about through my Tribeca and film society work, had the reputation that it did. And this spring, when I was at Tribeca before I came up here, when producers and distributors would ask, oh, what are you doing after the festival? And I, very sheepishly, because I was very naive and not qualified to say I was making a film, would say, oh, I'm making a film in Maine. And they'd say, you must meet Ben Fowli. You have to know about sif. And his reputation grew infinitely. And then when I came up the next year to attend the festivals as an audience member and to really explain the Points North Documentary Forum, it exceeded every very high expectation that I had. So I feel lucky to be able to join Ben and Sean in that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Caroline, how can people find out about engagement, about the Points North Forum, about the Camden International Film Festival in its entirety?

Caroline von Kuhn:

Yeah. Please visit our website@camdenfilmfest.org you can find all the lineup of films and all the industry delegates who are coming. And we have really exciting panels going on this year, really exciting conversations with leaders coming from all over and get your passes and come join us next weekend.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's been a pleasure to speak with the two of you, esteemed managing director of the Camden International Film Festival, Caroline von Kuhne, 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 von Kuhn:

Thank you so much for having us.

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 actor, actress and a writer and a filmmaker who is from Camden, Maine, originally. So thank you for coming in and spending time with us.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

My pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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. Indeed. Yes. And I'm also astounded by the range of things that you've worked on. Masters of Sex. It hasn't even come out yet on Showtime. But that's an interesting and ambitious project.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

It is an interesting and ambitious project. Yeah, we're very excited and hopeful, as you say. It comes out the 29th of September. And my hope actually is that it's sort of controversial because I think it's. 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.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Masters of Sex is about Masters and Johnson. They were the individuals who originally did the sex studies way back when.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Indeed. And you play Mrs. Masters.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Mrs. Masters, yes. Which is interesting because Masters and Johnson, they eventually got together.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

They did. They did they had a long standing 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. And historically my character's name is Libby Masters became very close friends with Virginia Johnson. And so there was this strange kind of love triangle that formed between the three of them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The work that you do, from what I can tell, is very relationship based.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Yeah, that's very accurate. I hadn't thought about that, but that's true.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. Well, I was watching Newlyweds yesterday and 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 to want watch this. So that's. That was an interesting commentary on relationships and what it means to be in a long term relationship and. Well, first of all, tell us a little bit about Newlyweds and tell us how this has impacted you as an individual.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

You know, Newlyweds is one of those movies. We made it for, you know, 10,000. We shot it for $10,000. And it was sort of bare bones crew. It was mostly me and Ed Burns and our DP and a sound guy who also was a producer in, you know, and we'd sort of get together. We shot it over the course of three months whenever we had free time. And we would, we shot it around Tribeca in, you know, restaurants and in friends apartments. And it felt so kind of intimate when we were shooting it. And it's. Eddie had a script, but we, he would also let us improvise. And it was kind of developed as we went along. He sort of wrote it as we went, depending on what we'd found when we were shooting. So it, it has to me a really natural and authentic feel about it. And I think. And people come up to me all the time and say that they've seen it and they love it. And I think part of it is it feels, it's. It's. The first conversation in the film is about how I think either my character Eddie says, you know, I've. 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. And I think most movies portray relationships as being these fairy tales. And what's interesting about Newlyweds is we start where most movies end, which is right after the wedding. Right. And so it's kind of like how it actually goes.

Ben Fowlie:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And there's a messiness to it. I mean, 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, something like that. So it's. It is. It's just the messiness and people moving in and out of the apartment that you're sharing.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Indeed, yeah. And that when you marry someone, you. You kind of. They come with a lot of baggage. And how do you negotiate that and how does it affect your interaction with your partner? Something we don't talk about very much in movies.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think 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 Selig, 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 Fitzgerald:

Sabrina died, I think, four weeks shy of her 23rd birthday. And we'd been friends since we were 11 and 12. And 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'd been living in a place of naivety whereby we all got to live forever. And certainly Sabrina, for me, was one of those people that I just. It was so assumed that I would know her my whole life. So it was incredibly disruptive to my sense of reality. And 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. And Caroline von Kuhn, my co writer, and I, started talking and she had similarly lost a friend, a best friend, at a young age. And we decided that it was. Was a unique enough experience that it could be interesting to write about that. And also that female friendships don't often get explored in cinema, and that 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. And certainly Sabrina is, you know, kind of knit into my DNA in this way. So, yeah, and it seemed very appropriate to shoot it in Maine in sort of locations where we'd. We shot at the. At the elementary school where we met and we shot, you know, all over my hometown. And it couldn't have been more perfect in that way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that this film has helped you heal in some way?

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

I think one of the most. One of the biggest gifts of being an artist is that you get to use the traumas that happen to you and the triumphs that happen 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. And, you know, I will miss Sabrina forever. I will write about her forever. But 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.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is an interesting birthday year, I think for you.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

It is indeed.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I won't say what birthday it is,

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

but I'm not ashamed. I am turning 30.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm remembering when I was turning 30 and I didn't think it would hit me as. And this was a little while ago, but I didn't think it would hit me the way as hard as it did. And 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. But there felt like something that I was crossing over.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Yeah, totally.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Does it feel that way to you?

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Yeah. You know, 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 turned 30, suddenly life was easy and you felt really relaxed about everything and you had everything in perspective. And I think that's obviously not entirely true, but I do think there is a certain amount. You're all laughing. Oh, dear. I do think there is something, and I can feel it actually, in this transitional returns kind of moment of, you know, your 20s are hard and you go through huge growth. At least I did. That is often uncomfortable. You make a lot of mistakes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

I'm excited to. I think. I hope that my 30s are a time of kind of reaping the benefits of all that education.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know it's not easy to be actress. I think that's probably an understatement. Yeah. It's something that requires a lot. It requires the ability to be rejected, I assume. Yeah, I mean, I assume that you've had some rejections. I don't.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Lots and lots and lots and lots of rejection. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So 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 what it, that I have, what it takes.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Well, I mean, 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 think also, and I would recommend this for every actor out there, that making your own work is vital and sort of puts the agency of your life back in your own hands in a way so you're not turning over all your power to other people's whims. And, you know, you find your communities. And I have, I'm part of a theater company in New York and they're really wonderful and I do stuff with them. And, you know, you find, you find your ways of, 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.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Caitlin, how can people find out about the work that you can 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 Fitzgerald:

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 and Spark that is a distribution and fundraising platform for indie film that our producer actually launched following our movie. And it's doing very well. It's very exciting. And Masters of Sex airs 10pm on 29 September on Showtime following Homeland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We started this interview by saying many little girls dream of being an actress. Not everybody, 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 Fitzgerald:

Surround yourself with people who keep you really grounded and who really love you no matter what success or failure you have. And figure out what stories matter the most to your heart and tell them as loudly as you can.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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, Kate.

Caitlin Fitzgerald:

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 106, Motion Pictures. Our guests have included Ben Fowley, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Carolyn Von Kuhn and Sean Flynn. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Dr. Lisa.org the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes for a 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

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of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 pictures show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

May you have a bountiful life.