The Independent Community
Last night, I had the pleasure of hosting the Concord premiere of a locally made independent film: “Dangerous Crosswinds.” The movie was directed by Bill Millios and featured a cast of local actors and bystanders and it was beautifully filmed on locations all over the seacoast. I had seen the filmmaker’s first effort, “Old Man Dogs,” which was a worthy effort and a good first film for a young director. I knew he was serious about his craft and I assumed that this one would be better. And it was a much better movie, though the acting ranged from amateur to professional and the script could have been burnished a little more in a spot or two.
I had just finished working on New Hampshire Magazine’s biggest event of the year, our “Best of New Hampshire Party,” so I hadn’t given my responsibilities much thought. I only had time to scribble down a few notes for my introduction just before the show, then I typed them up to help imbed them in my mind. Public speaking is not my forte. If there are five points I must make, I tend to lose one or two somewhere along the way.
If something occurs to me as I’m speaking I wind up launching off into it, without necessarily knowing how I’ll get back to the point at hand. The point that occurred to me this time, mid-speech, was the irony that something called “independent film” could become such a community project as this movie obviously was. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of volunteers needed to make the movie happen. At my screening, the director of photography, Marc Vadeboncouer, was running the projector. Half the audience was family and friends of cast and crew.
I realized that this is the paradox of New Hampshire in many ways. We are perhaps the most independent-minded state in a country whose very creed declares the word “Independence” in the title. Go to any little New Hampshire town and you’ll detect a sense of self-importance that would seem irrational if not for the fact that every other little town has the very same attitude and doesn’t mind telling you so.
And yet there is a terrific sense of community here in New Hampshire. Selectmen who conduct an annual examination of their town boundaries to make sure the next town hasn’t encroached an inch, are also volunteer EMTs who will drop everything to rush to the aid of someone five towns away. Our Best of New Hampshire Party brought ruggedly independent restaurants and performers and partiers from all over the state together to celebrate and to raise funds for the good work of Big Brothers Big Sister of NH.
Maybe independence is the glue that holds communities together. Maybe, like Robert Frost once wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.”
Movies are probably the great communication medium of our age. If New Hampshire’s stories are to be told, we will need more independent filmmakers like Bill Millios to tell them. It’s good to have him already pointing the way.
I had just finished working on New Hampshire Magazine’s biggest event of the year, our “Best of New Hampshire Party,” so I hadn’t given my responsibilities much thought. I only had time to scribble down a few notes for my introduction just before the show, then I typed them up to help imbed them in my mind. Public speaking is not my forte. If there are five points I must make, I tend to lose one or two somewhere along the way.
If something occurs to me as I’m speaking I wind up launching off into it, without necessarily knowing how I’ll get back to the point at hand. The point that occurred to me this time, mid-speech, was the irony that something called “independent film” could become such a community project as this movie obviously was. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of volunteers needed to make the movie happen. At my screening, the director of photography, Marc Vadeboncouer, was running the projector. Half the audience was family and friends of cast and crew.
I realized that this is the paradox of New Hampshire in many ways. We are perhaps the most independent-minded state in a country whose very creed declares the word “Independence” in the title. Go to any little New Hampshire town and you’ll detect a sense of self-importance that would seem irrational if not for the fact that every other little town has the very same attitude and doesn’t mind telling you so.
And yet there is a terrific sense of community here in New Hampshire. Selectmen who conduct an annual examination of their town boundaries to make sure the next town hasn’t encroached an inch, are also volunteer EMTs who will drop everything to rush to the aid of someone five towns away. Our Best of New Hampshire Party brought ruggedly independent restaurants and performers and partiers from all over the state together to celebrate and to raise funds for the good work of Big Brothers Big Sister of NH.
Maybe independence is the glue that holds communities together. Maybe, like Robert Frost once wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.”
Movies are probably the great communication medium of our age. If New Hampshire’s stories are to be told, we will need more independent filmmakers like Bill Millios to tell them. It’s good to have him already pointing the way.
posted by Rick Broussard at 2:44 PM
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