Every small town has a woodsy, abandoned spot where the kids go to party. It’s a common teen rite: Give the parents an alibi, meet in the convenience store parking lot, and two-track to a secret locale. Every few years, a headline blares that a night of fun has ended in a tragic car crash. For those watching from the sidelines, that’s where the story normally ends. 

Not so for Norwich, Vt., filmmaker, Nora Jacobson, who brings her second feature film, “Nothing Like Dreaming,” to The Music Hall on Thursday, Nov. 10. Jacobson’s version takes the harder road, plunging into the aftermath of teen tragedy and exploring how one strong young woman responds. The lead character, Emma, is a high school senior whose best friend dies after a bonfire party.

“Emma’s the girl who has everything going for her, who keeps it together, takes care of her mother; she’s the responsible one,” Jacobson describes her. But the event sparks a downward spiral, and leaves Emma with unanswered questions about her future. Should she go to Yale, as planned? Is she ready to face the fragility of her family or the fact that she abandoned her friend the night she died?

These questions are posed in the stark Vermont winter, with the state capitol and local politics humming in the background. Taking after her senator father, Emma is more comfortable voicing politics than looking inward. But this changes when she forges a relationship with a reclusive artist, Sonny. Together they build an incredible instrument from pipes and scraps. It’s a fire organ, and it warbles whale-like calls when heated by flames from a torch.

What Jacobson admires about Emma is that she sees Sonny for who he is, whereas her father, and the rest of the adult community, see him as possibly dangerous.

“In the scrap yard, when he tells her about his gods and how he could see into the past, Emma says, ‘Wow. You can see into the past?’ She is open to other ways of thinking.”

Emma is based on a young woman Jacobson met while filming another project. In the shadow of a real-life accident that parallels the one in the film, the young woman, Gabby, expressed strong feelings about kids having alternatives to partying. “She wanted to start a teen-run café with space for creative activities,” says Jacobson.

Initially, Jacobson wanted to write about the accident. But after talking with Gabby, “Nothing Like Dreaming” became a film about a girl who is “smart but definitely not prim, a young woman who takes things into her own hands.”

Not unlike Jacobson, some might say. After all, it takes initiative to make independent films for nearly 25 years. She fell in love with the medium through experimental films. But her interest in anthropology, and her desire to learn conventional filmmaking techniques, led her to documentaries and her first major project. She spent eight years making “Delivered Vacant,” about the gentrification and real estate wars of Hoboken, N.J. She sat through countless community meetings and sifted through the fine print of leases and agreements. She also learned how to cut on movement, how to frame a shot, and how to make certain contacts. To her surprise, the New York Film Festival and Sundance accepted it. “So that really opened some doors,” she notes.

Even though it might have made more sense to keep making documentaries, Jacobson began to realize that she was influencing the narrative. “I was trying to shape the words that came out of people’s mouths to tell the story I wanted to tell,” she reflects. This acknowledgment facilitated a shift toward fiction. So when her sister handed her a memoir about one woman’s discovery of a buried family secret, Jacobson collaborated with the author and turned it into her first feature, “My Mother’s Early Lovers,” which she finished in 1998.

Both “My Mother’s Early Lovers” and “Nothing Like Dreaming” were shot in Jacobson’s native Vermont, using a primarily local crew and local talent. On Thursday, viewers may recognize the late folk singer Rachel Bissex, known in Vermont and beyond, who plays Emma’s mom. She responded to a call for auditions in Burlington and Jacobson was “blown away.” Jacobson tells how she hadn’t yet cast the role when she went to a concert where Bissex sweetly told the audience, “I just got a part in Nora Jacobson’s film!” In the original script, the character was a depressed actress, so Jacobson rewrote the part as a depressed folk singer. The singer and director became fast friends, a relationship that continued until Bissex died in February of breast cancer. Jacobson devoted a chapter to her on the DVD extras, where she sings “this amazing song,” “Dancing With My Mother.”

Another unforgettable character, the fire organ, made its Portsmouth debut at this year’s Halloween parade. “As soon as people got to where they could see flames shooting out of the tubes, they were incredibly interested and friendly,” says Jacobson, who came to town for the event. She recruited a self-proclaimed fire artist from France to create the organ for the film. He built it with the help of Jacobson’s sister Antoinette, who also plays the organ. A portable version can travel with the film, and has intrigued audiences throughout New England. On Monday, Jacobson took a turn with the torch. Many visitors stopped by, including one hitchhiking fire thrower who failed to get a permit in time to join the parade. The event gave Jacobson a good sense of Portsmouth. “Every town has its own personality. They seemed very open to us.”

“Nothing Like Dreaming”
screens Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. at The Music Hall. Filmmaker Nora Jacobson will be present for a discussion with the audience.