A SCENE from Carl Elsaesser’s “Brown Ash,” to be shot in Maine.
Carl Elsaesser, a 2007 graduate of Brunswick High School and emerging filmmaker, is headed home this summer to film “Brown Ash,” a feature length experimental poetic film, shot on 16 mm film, about contemporary identity in Maine.
The project is supported by Creative Portland, The Theater Project, and Northeast Historic Film.
The working title for the film is “Brown Ash” in reference to the tree used by Maine Indians to make baskets. The film is built in part around the metaphor of the threat to this tree posed by the emerald ash borer, which has yet to arrive in Maine but whose arrival seems eminent in the next five to 10 years and leaves the fate of the basketmaking tradition suspended.
The film is also an attempt to portray the entire life of a mother in the course of a single day: the choices she makes, the invisible strings that turn her head to notice the woods and define her hopes and fears. The two narratives poetically together are meant to expand and complicate our notions of Maine identity and begin to answer the questions of who we were, who we are and who we will be.
Elsaesser and his team have applied for the Artists in Maine Communities grant through the Maine Arts Commission and are committed to making a film that involves and employs Maine artists and filmmakers in all phases of production.
The film’s production team will launch an Indiegogo crowd-sourced fundraising campaign online this weekend. All those who want to support the project will have 45 days to donate by visiting www.indiegogo.com/ projects/ cruel-the-ash/.
“We already have everything in place,” Elsaesser told The Times Record in a brief telephone interview while he drove back to Brunswick. “The only thing we have left to raise money for is the actual 16 mm film itself.”
All those who donate money to support the film will receive a thank you gift, ranging from a bookmark made from film cuttings to a copy of the finished film once it is complete. The goal is to raise $5,000 to buy, develop and transfer the film, Elsaesser said.
Elsaesser has already made two films, “There Is a Wind That Blew” and “A Thoughtful Goodbye,” which have collectively screened at film festivals across the country and internationally and for which he has earned several grants and awards. In addition to working on this new film, he also works part time for San Francisco artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson and programs for the SF Independent Film Festival.
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