Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven thought he was done making movies. Then he made one more.
Brent HallenbeckJay Craven thought when he began making “Lost Nation” a couple of years ago that the film set in the Revolutionary War era would be his last.
“Lost Nation” was an ambitious project for the Vermont filmmaker who normally makes movies in the $2 million-$3 million range. The film telling of Vermont’s formative years through two of its most significant figures of the 18th century involved 46 speaking parts, 53 locations and way more battle scenes, horses and period costumes than a Jay Craven film typically entails.
“It proved to be a very difficult project,” he said of the film that went $400,000 over its $1.7 million budget and was marked by tension among the crew. “Hopefully we made a movie that’s coherent despite all that.”
Those difficulties with “Lost Nation” – which begins a statewide tour July 10-11 in Brattleboro and arrives in Burlington for screenings July 12-13 – would have ended Craven’s career on an unsatisfying note. So instead, he recently wrapped filming on his 11th and final final film, “Major Barbara,” which is based on the George Bernard Shaw play and due out next year.
“I decided afterwards to do it again,” he said of one last film, “to try to go out on a more positive note.” “Major Barbara,” he said, “very happily turned out to be great.”
Movies with Michael J. Fox, Kris Kristofferson
Craven, 73, began his movie career with what might be his highest-profile film, 1994’s “Where the Rivers Flow North,” starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox. Films such as “A Stranger in the Kingdom” (1998) with Ernie Hudson and Martin Sheen and “Disappearances” (2006) featuring Kris Kristofferson and Genevieve Bujold followed. Those movies were based on novels by Craven’s fellow Northeast Kingdom resident, Howard Frank Mosher, who died in 2017.
Craven, Vermont’s most prominent filmmaker, has eschewed film studios to make pictures on his own terms with stories, locations and investors often based in Vermont.
“His impact on the arts in Vermont is truly incalculable,” longtime Vermont media figure Fran Stoddard said in introducing Craven at the recent Herb Lockwood Prize in the Arts ceremony in Burlington. (Craven won that honor in 2023.)
Craven spoke with the Burlington Free Press prior to this year’s Herb Lockwood Prize ceremony at the BCA Center, three days after he had surgery for a hernia. His age is one reason in deciding to end his career as a director and a producer, but he said another factor involving numbers looms even larger.
“It just gets harder. The money is always such a challenge,” Craven said of his efforts to fund his films. “If I didn’t have to think about the money all the time – it just takes a lot.”
“There comes a point,” he said, “where you just don’t want to keep doing it.”
Students from UVM and beyond
Starting in 2012 with “Northern Borders” – starring Bruce Dern and Bujold and also based on a novel by Mosher – Craven has made films with a mix of professional crew members and students from various colleges. That program, Semester Cinema, has brought students from schools across the U.S., including the University of Vermont and Vermont State University’s campus in Lyndon.
Craven utilized Semester Cinema for “Lost Nation,” his project telling the stories of Vermont rebel Ethan Allen, founder of the Green Mountain Boys, and southern Vermont poet Lucy Terry Prince, said to have written the first work of literature by an African American. The film became problematic, however, in part because it was completed as the COVID-19 shutdowns were easing in 2022. Craven said many of the students hadn’t even been on their own campuses yet because of the pandemic.
Otherwise, though, he’s thrilled with Semester Cinema, which has launched careers in filmmaking and made Craven’s goal to craft small-budget films more doable.
“This project has been sustainable” in a way going through the studio system would not be, according to Craven. “It worked from day one.”
Semester Cinema moves to South Carolina
Though he is stepping away from filmmaking, Craven is not done with Semester Cinema. He said the program will be run by a film professor at Wofford College in South Carolina, one of the schools that has been taking part in Semester Cinema, but Craven will stay as a senior producer. The sons of Craven and his wife, documentary filmmaker Bess O’Brien – Jasper Craven, a journalist, and Sascha Stanton-Craven, a film editor in Hollywood – will also be involved.
“It’s time for younger leadership,” the elder Craven said. “I feel positive because the program itself has never looked better.”
Craven continues to oversee KCP Presents, which brings performing-arts events to the Northeast Kingdom, and is artistic director of the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. He leads a film series at Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock and is writing a memoir. Unable to escape fundraising completely, he said he’s helping to raise money for a food co-op in St. Johnsbury.
If a producer asks him to make a film, he said he’s open to the idea, but he’s done working as a producer/director. “I don’t see that path,” he said, “because it means playing the industry game.”
He will feel the loss of filmmaking, especially writing and directing.
“I love the collaboration,” Craven said. “I will miss that, there’s no question.”
If you go
WHAT: Screenings of the Jay Craven film “Lost Nation” featuring appearances by the filmmaker as well as actors Eva Ndachi (Lucy Terry Prince) and Rusty DeWees (Asa Locke)
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, July 12-Saturday, July 13
WHERE: Film House, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington
INFORMATION: $20. www.catamountarts.org/kcp-presents/
Contact Brent Hallenbeck atbhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.