Jay Craven's NORTHERN BORDERS to be Screened at Various Vermont Venues in Sept.

Award-winning Vermont director Jay Craven will present his new film, "Northern Borders," at special screenings, Friday, September 6th at the Brandon Town Hall; Friday, September 13th , Vergennes Opera House; Saturday, September 14th at Middlebury Town Hall Theater; and Sunday, September 15th at Holley Hall, Bristol. Showtimes are 7:30pm. The film is based on the award-winning novel by Vermont writer Howard Frank Mosher.

The Addison County screenings are being presented as part of the film's 100 Town Tour. Craven, who is featured in a recent WBUR podcast: http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/08/02/jay-craven-film. -- and in July's Orion Magazine: (orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7595) for his place-based film work, will introduce the picture and lead a post-film discussion at each date.

"Northern Borders" is based on Howard Frank Mosher's award-winning novel that was recently declared by The London Guardian as one of the "Top Ten Books Featuring Grandparents" (others included Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" and Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"). The picture stars Bruce Dern ("Coming Home," Alfred Hitchcock's "Family Plot") and Geneviève Bujold ("Anne of a Thousand Days, "King of Hearts"). Dern was recently named Best Actor at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, for Alexander Payne's new film, "Nebraska" which he shot immediately after completing "Northern Borders." Both Bujold and Dern have received Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy nominations. Bujold has also won an Emmy and Golden Globe. "Northern Borders" also stars Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick ("Moonrise Kingdom") and 2010 Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht ("Sideways," "Friends"). The film was featured at a sold-out June 27th screening of the recent Nantucket Film Festival and it will play August 2nd at the Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod.

"Northern Borders" tells the story of ten year-old Austen Kittredge, who is sent to live on his grandparents' Kingdom County Vermont farm, where he has wild adventures and uncovers long-festering family secrets. It's 1956 and Austen experiences rural Kingdom County as a place full of eccentric people including his stubborn grandparents, whose thorny marriage is known as the Forty Years War. Initially feeling stuck in this fractured household, young Austen plans a quick exit but ends up Stranded with no choice but to navigate and endure. A humorous and sometimes startling coming-of-age story, Northern Borders evokes Vermont's wildness, its sublime beauty, a haunted past, and an aura of enchantment.

Northern Borders was produced as the result of a unique partnership between Jay Craven's non-profit Kingdom County Productions and Marlboro College, where Craven is professor of film. The picture was made as the outcome of a semester-long film intensive called Movies from Marlboro. It was produced on a lean budget, through the collaboration of 20 young filmmaking professionals and 26 students from 12 colleges, who worked in substantial roles in every level of production. A new 2014 Movies from Marlboro project will produce "Peter and John," based on Guy de Maupassant's ground-breaking 1887 novel. That production is planned for next spring on Nantucket. It will again partner professionals and students from multiple colleges who earn academic credit for a "semester away" from their home school. Information is available at Movies.Marlboro.edu or by contacting Jay Craven (jcraven@marlboro.edu).

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