BOWDOINHAM

The town’s yearlong

250th birthday celebration continues tonight with the premier of a documentary about growing up in Bowdoinham.

The 50-minute film by Jeff Fischer, “Growing Up Bowdoinham,” headlines this weekend’s harvest festival.

Since he began the project in February with the help of a dedicated group of middleschool students, Fischer interviewed 16 individuals about their experiences growing up in town, representing nearly every decade going back to 1910.

The film will play at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 13 School St., free of charge. A second showing will take place Saturday, Nov. 10.

Having recently retired from Mt. Ararat High School where he taught English and film, “I thought, boy, wouldn’t it be fun to make a documentary about town, because documentaries are something I enjoy,” Fischer said.

He invited middle-school kids from Bowdoinham to help him make the film. Some not only conducted inteviews but came up with some of the questions and suggested likely interview subjects.

The idea of the film was to explore the similarities and differences between growing up in Bowdoinham in the 21st century and 20th century, “and every place in between,” Fischer said.

He tried to stick to the kids’ suggestions, “and they all had to be kids in Bowdoinham … I wanted some of those people to be people whose families lived in Bowdoinham many generations; but also people whose families had moved to Bowdoinham recently — so a mix of people.”

When the 16 interviewees — ranging in age from 9 to 98 — were approached, “Nobody said no, and this included some pretty shy people,” Fischer said, “and some people who thought, well why would anyone want to interview me? But they didn’t say no and I think maybe the fact that there were kids involved in the interview process made it less formidable.”

Using a microphone and borrowed digital camera that can record video, interviews averaged 20 and 40 minutes, which would have made for a 7-1/2-hour movie.

“It’s a highly edited movie,” Fischer said.

One section talks about games and play and the things people did for fun. Another is about school, including information about where people went to school and recollections of school. “Making a Living” is the broad topic of the third section that covers the kind of jobs people had and what they did to earn money.

The last section is about community, “and it’s about the typical celebrations that bring the town of Bowdoinham together,” said Fischer.

With so much footage of people talking to the camera, Fischer worked to add visual components to the end product and has incorporated pictures from the film subjects themselves, and pictures from other residents and the Bowdoinham Historical Society.

There is a newspaper photo from many years ago, for example, of Mrs. Prout talking to two girls picking peas.

Pea-picking was a common experience for many of those interviewed, Fischer noted. Up until 10 or 15 years ago or so, quite a few people recalled working in the fields of Bowdoinham picking peas during the summer. A bus would come to the store and pick up the kids and take them to the pea fields.

How people used to get their food — right in Bowdoinham before the highway was built — was a theme that emerged. Several remembered growing their own food and having pigs, cows, rabbits and chickens.

Bowdoinham resident Hutson Hayward helped produce the film, and Fischer also got tips along the way from friend and nationally noted film editor Mary Lampson, of Dresden.

“It’s a feel good movie and having your town have its 250th anniversary is a pretty feel good time,” Fischer said. “We kind of think Bowdoinham is a special town and we hope this film will give that feeling.”

Interviewed in the film are Erla Browne Kelley, Jim Brawn, David Berry, Frank Connors, Brent Zachau, Anne Davis, Albert Stehle, Holly Blake, Catherine Curtis, Katherine Kelley Winglass, Peter Engler, Kaleigh Allen Frye, Rachel Wildes, Charlie Gill, and twins Joseph and Camila Ciembroniewicz.

A clip of the film can be found on youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v= LCbA6htGugc. ¦ SATURDAY’S HARVEST FESTIVAL EVENTS

— 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., last of season’s Bowdoinham Farmers’ Market, at Merrymeeting Grange, 27 Main St.

— 10-11 a.m., Waterwitch demostrations at the fire station, 57 Post Road

— 10 a.m.-1 p.m., “Portraits of Portraits” fall show at Merrymeeting Arts Center, 9 Main St., featuring Jack Mongomery’s photos of Bryce Muir’s sculptures

— noon to 2 p.m., Long Branch School of Maine, 20 Main St., hosting blacksmithing demonstrations, a local harvest potluck and locally grown music from The Long Branch Boys and a friendly game of horseshoes

— 1-3 p.m., fall crafts at Merrymeeting Arts Center’s Cathance Place, 6 Main St.

— 7 p.m., Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble performing “The Medicine Show” — an original play using masks, drumming, song and dance for the Halloween season — at the Bowdoinham public works facility, 8 River Road (adjacent to Mailly Waterfront Park).