This weekend, filmmakers, potential filmmakers, film junkies, actors, wannabe actors, and critics will converge on Portsmouth to partake in the fifth annual New Hampshire Film Expo. Out of more than 50 movies to be shown, one-third will be from New Hampshire filmmakers. The tales they have to tell include those of a college student casino operator; a mythical swamp cat from the South Berwick area; a West African musician; a world-class skier; and a bridge-dwelling troll with a reputation for scaring a band of billy goats.The not-for-profit and volunteer-driven expo, which runs Oct. 14-16, is created and staffed entirely by local filmmakers and fans of independent film.

“It speaks for what filmmaking is all about in New Hampshire,” says Matthew Newton, film specialist for the New Hampshire Film and Television Office. “The filmmakers (and volunteers) who run the festival are very well-versed in Yankee ingenuity, where they have a day job, then come home to do their filmmaking in the evening.”

As the festival enters its fifth year and its second year in Portsmouth, Chris Proulx, a co-founder of the expo and current programming director, has seen the event “more than double” since its inception in Derry. This year the festival will screen 51 submissions from international, national and New England filmmakers. “(We look) for films that are well done, appealing to the audience, that have potential quality, and where they come from. We also try and give New Hampshire filmmakers a leg up on their films,” Proulx says.

The event is about more than screening films. It’s also about making them, about getting filmmakers together and facilitating discussion.

This year Proulx and the other NHFX board members have kept busy fine tuning the event, including adding an Internet café at the hospitality suite of their headquarters at the IOS Business Lobby at 155 Fleet St., around the corner from The Music Hall. The workshops this year have also changed to include a panel discussion called  “Festivals 101” on Saturday at The Music Hall. The panel will be made up of three film festival coordinators, including the directors of the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Manhattan Shorts Film Festival, and NHFX’s own director of development Nicole Gregg. A roundtable on “Filmmaking in New Hampshire” will take place on Saturday at the South Church on State Street with the production team of “Sensation of Sight” and the co-writer/director of “Live Free or Die,” Andy Robin, a former Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld writer. “Live Free or Die” filmed in New Hampshire for several weeks.
“Every year with the workshops we try and offer something different,” Proulx says. “We provide different aspects of filmmaking from acting to digital editing to writing workshops.”

Other workshops on the schedule include a writing workshop to explore the “What if’s” about questions that might be asked by studio development heads when you make your pitch (Saturday, IOS Business Center), and a workshop on editing technique by Keene State College film professor James Steelman (Sunday, IOS Business Center). A Young Filmmakers Workshop allows junior high and high school students to learn about the process and methods of filmmaking including scripting, storyboarding, production planning, cinematography and other vital aspects of creating films. As part of the workshop, they will film and edit their own movies, which will premiere on Sunday at the NHFX closing ceremonies before an audience of parents, friends, directors and producers.     

Holding a film festival like NHFX is also a great way to show filmmakers and actors from other regions of the country that larger budget films are possible in New Hampshire. Gregg says the New Hampshire roundtable on Saturday is an educational presentation for both in-state and out-of-state filmmakers. “It’s important for people coming from out-of-town to New Hampshire to know what is going on here,” she says. “(The event) is also to educate our own filmmakers on potential opportunities. They will know it’s possible to create a film of a million dollar budget or more in New Hampshire.” In turn, these productions will feed our economy and industry by hiring local people, Gregg says. “They help cultivate a future in New Hampshire for film productions,” she says. “Hopefully when people shoot a film here they will want to keep coming back.”

Portions of the Bode Miller documentary “Flying Downhill” will screen on Saturday at The Music Hall. The documentary follows the New Hampshire native now known as the best ski racer in the world, says Bill Rodgers, executive director and co-founder of Coruway Film Institute, the Portsmouth based company producing the film. Rodgers has been shooting footage since 1999 and traveled to the 2002 Olympics and several World Cup Races to film Bode. “The film is about where (Miller) comes from and what makes him tick,” says Rodgers. “The film follows the process as he becomes a great ski racer.”
Rodgers is using the film festival as an opportunity to show the rough cut of the documentary, which will lack a complete sound mix and some bits and pieces from recent interviews with Bode. He plans to premiere “Flying Downhill” itself at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Alberta, Canada, on Nov. 4.
“To have a community of filmmakers and a place to show the films is dynamite,” says Rodgers, a New Hampshire resident for 15 years now. “A festival like this helps you translate the needs of the audience with the vision I’m trying to develop.”

Like Rodgers, many of these filmmakers will be attending the festival. 

Filmmaker Stefan Glidden of Rochester will be on hand for “S. Katz V.P.” at The Music Hall on Friday evening, a night completely devoted to films by New Hampshire filmmakers. Glidden, a recent graduate from Boston University, wrote and submitted the comedy as his senior thesis. The story is of a college student who runs his own casino until he faces competition from a rival student casino. The film was written by Glidden in December 2004. He shot the footage for the movie in five days using actors from BU and other Boston colleges.

“We were shooting till 5 a.m. one day,” says Glidden. “And we had to get ready to shoot at 7 that morning.” Still, it feels good to fulfill a dream he’s had since seventh grade. “(The film) is a stepping stone, a block toward what I’m going to do next,” he says. Glidden, 21, already has plans to move to Los Angeles this winter and continue to make films.

Stephanie Higgins, an alumna of the University of New Hampshire, will be present for “The Gay Marriage Thing,” on Saturday. Her film, a documentary about gay marriages in Massachusetts, was prompted by the 2004 constitutional convention during which the state Legislature debated gay marriage.

“I decided that morning (of the debate) to go down and sit in the gallery to listen to a debate about my life, as a gay person,” says Higgins. “A debate about whether someday I could marry the woman of my dreams.”

Struck by the emotion of the debate, she decided to return with a camera crew when the convention reconvened several weeks later. Using interviews from people on the street, religious leaders, and legislators, Higgins centered her documentary around a Massachusetts lesbian couple as they prepared for marriage on May 17, 2004, the first date that same-sex couples could file for marriage. Higgins captures opinions on both sides of the argument. She calls the piece family friendly, a film that people of different beliefs and perspectives can watch together and which will promote discussion. “Nobody’s insulted in the piece and nobody will feel insulted when leaving,” says Higgins. “These festivals are so important to introducing people to topics and films they might not see.”

Higgins has been in the film industry for five years and started her own production company, Sassy-Media, in 2003. She believes that events like NHFX are important to telling the stories of small-time filmmakers.

“There are so many stories that matter that don’t get told in the mass media,” she says. “These festivals encourage people to keep working on these stories and encourage them to get their films shown to larger audiences.”    

Founder and director of Hatchling Studios, Marc Dole, who originally began experimenting with production and animation in his Newmarket garage, will present a behind-the-scenes look at his company’s near-complete animated short feature, “The Toll.” The film, called “Loose Change,” will show how the Pixar-style 3-D animation in “The Toll” was created, how actors dubbed in voices, and quick clips of the animation short. “The Toll” tells the tale of a film student who interviews the troll who lives under the bridge that the Billy Goats Gruff try to pass over. “(He) makes all the typical student film director mistakes,” says Dole. “Stuff like bumping into the microphone.” 

So far it has taken Dole and his crew of five animators 18 months to complete 13 seconds of the five-minute film, but most of that was preparation for the animation. “Next week we will have one minute done because all the prep work is completed,” he says. Dole is using the short to show off what the five-year-old company is capable of to potential investors. His goal is to produce feature animations, including the story of  “Flare,” an original feature-length film about a little girl who finds a baby dragon in her backyard.

Eleven-year-old Savannah Magruder of South Berwick, Maine, will be there to see “Swampcat” on Saturday at the Sheraton Amphitheater. Her short film, which she calls a mixture of comedy and horror, is about a fictional creature that lives in a swamp and has become the stuff of legend to the locals who fear it. Magruder invented the creature on a hike with her dad through a swampy area, and her father, Chris Magruder, encouraged her to make a movie about it. 

“It just seemed like a good idea,” she says about the film.  “Anytime I come up with a good idea I’m eager to start making it.”

Magruder has made over 20 movies with a video camera she received from her parents last Christmas. The films range widely, many of them shot with the help of her friends. One such series of films, called “Imbeciles of America,” follows a man whose ridiculous adventures become the theme of each of the 10 movies Savannah created about him. “Every episode has something stupid that he does and I focus it around that,” she says.  The majority of Savannah’s films are done with dolls, most commonly the Bratz series dolls.  

“Swampcat” took one month for her and her father to put together. The hardest part was recording the theme music for the film, which Chris provides with electric bass and vocals.

The West African and classical music of Tunde Jegede is the focus of Ron Wyman’s documentary, “Tunde.”  Wyman, a Portsmouth resident, has been working on the piece for a year and a half now, traveling to Africa four times and London five times to shoot footage of Tunde and of other traditional African musicians. Tunde, a native of West Africa and master kora (African harp) player, studied classical music in London.  His compositions have dealt with the fusion of African music and primarily western music like jazz, hip-hop and classical. 

“His music is what drew me in, it’s so compelling,” says Wyman. “The piece is about him and his creative process.” Wyman shows Tunde in rehearsals in London, mixed with footage of African musicians playing and living in their West African villages. The film finishes with Tunde and other musicians playing before a live audience in Paris. 

“I call him the Jerry Garcia of the kora,” Wyman says.

To Wyman, a film festival like NHFX represents the evolution of technology and ease of opportunity for small-time artists to create high quality films. 

“(Digital cameras) really opened it up to artists,” says Wyman. “The festival really acknowledges the very talented people who never really had an opportunity before because of cost. The tools now are available and affordable to everybody who wants to make movies.”