Kingdom County Productions has started three weeks of principal photography in and around Marlboro for its newest film, “Lost Nation,” that will tell a multi-racial narrative set in Vermont during the American Revolution. The film is being directed by veteran Vermont filmmaker, Jay Craven (“Where the Rivers Flow North,” “Disappearances,” “Northern Borders”) from a script written by Craven and South Royalton producer/writer Elena Greenlee.
“Lost Nation” will tell a potent and timely story that charts the parallel and intersecting journeys of enigmatic, larger-than-life Vermont founding father Ethan Allen and woman-of-words, Lucy Terry Prince, whose poem, “Bars Fight” is the first known work of African American literature.
Enslaved at the age of 3, without her parents, Lucy Prince served a Massachusetts family for 30 years. Her entrepreneurial husband, Abijah, also formerly enslaved, bought her freedom with proceeds earned from fighting in the French and Indian War. Together they settled a 100-acre Guilford homestead, sent two sons into the Continental Army and broke new ground for their family’s civil rights, as they protected their cherished land, on the Revolutionary War’s northern frontier.
Ethan Allen’s journey includes the capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British for the first offensive victory in the American war for independence. Allen also led defiance of New York sheriffs and posses looking to evict early Vermont settlers; an abortive attack on Montreal that landed him on a British prison ship; and dealings and overtures to George Washington, Alexander Hamilton — and Quebec intelligence agent and former Green Mountain Boy Justus Sherwood, with whom Allen discussed a proposed alliance with Britain.
“Lost Nation” will capture an indelible moment that conveys the complexity and power of the early American dream — and the challenge to fulfill the promise of the American Revolution,” said Craven.
“It will contribute to the reclaiming of little-known Black history and will add to what actor Tom Hanks proposed in his recent New York Times op-ed — history-based fiction films that “map our cultural DNA, reflect who we really are and help determine what is our full history, what we must remember.” This is vital, Hanks wrote, because in American films, including his own, “the history of Black people was too often left out.”
Los Angeles-based Irish actor Kevin Ryan plays Ethan Allen and Kenyan-American actress Eva Ndachi plays Lucy Terry Prince. There are 43 speaking parts in the picture and actors include Vermonters Rusty DeWees (Yorker Asa Locke) and Ariel Zevon (Ethan’s wife, Mary Allen).
“Lost Nation” is being produced through KCP’s Semester Cinema program, that brings together 30 professionals who mentor and collaborate with 45 students from 14 colleges — to make an ambitious feature film for national release. Semester Cinema works to advance Vermont education pioneer John Dewey’s call for “intensive learning that enlarges meaning through shared experience and joint action.”
Also, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s practice of generating dialogue from participants’ own views, aspirations and lived experiences — that are articulated, shared, respected and critically examined in a supportive context. These dialogues spur critical thinking, problem solving, flexibility, engagement and an imagination for what’s possible.
This unique-in-the-nation program partners with participating colleges including Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Hamilton, Swarthmore, Sarah Lawrence, Skidmore, Bates, Hobart, Northern Vermont University, University of Vermont, Kenyon — and Spelman, America’s leading historically Black college for women.
