Film shot at Blue Mountain Lake to screen in area festivals

GLENS FALLS | Blue Mountain Lake is the setting for "The Song of Sway Lake" that headlines next weekend's Adirondack Film Festival. The movie's screenwriter and director talked recently about how his many summers spent at the lake during his youth inspired the project. The story line of "The Song of Sway Lake" centers on a how a young man's plot to steal a vintage jazz record from his grandmother's lake house is derailed when his accomplice falls for the family matriarch. The film, a romantic drama exploring the vanished grace of America, stars noted television, movie and stage actors Rory Culkin, Robert Sheehan, Isabell McNally and Mary Beth Peil. Shot on and around Blue Mountain Lake and at an estate in the town, the film features local residents as extras. Much of the film was shot at the Crane Point Lodge as well as the Blue Mountain Lake Boat Livery. Scenes were also filmed at the Adirondack Hotel on Long Lake. SCREENING DETAILS More than 100 films — from short videos to feature films — will be shown at the Festival, scheduled to run from Thursday evening Oct. 18 through Sunday Oct. 21. Most of the screenings take place from 9:30 a.m. Friday through Saturday at 10 p.m. at the Park Theater, the Charles Wood Theater, Crandall Public Library, The Hyde Collection, and in two venues at the Queensbury Hotel. All these venues are in Glens Falls. Sway Lake is scheduled to screen at 3:45 p.m. Saturday Oct. 20 in the Charles Wood Theater on Glen St. in the Adirondack Film Festival — and a week later in the Lake Placid Film Festival. The entertainment trade magazine Variety offers a incisive description of Sway Lake, which has impressed critics with its compelling emotional content, solid acting — and its lush photography and artful editing. "Ari Gold's engaging new film The Song Of Sway Lake focuses on a young man coming to terms with his father's suicide. In the course of trying to find a rare, valuable record album his father kept at their old lake house, the young man encounters varying depths of nostalgia, family dysfunctions, romance — and embraces the power of letting go." The New York Times calls the film "Offbeat, continually intriguing." Vancouver Culture said the film is "A striking picture of romantic drama inspired by jazz-age New York aristocracy." The film has already been featured at 45 festivals, and has won 15 awards. Ari Gold said this week that he spent summers in his grandparents' great camp on Blue Mountain Lake since he was four months old. "A lot of my childhood memories were converted into elements of movie's story," he said, noting that the matriarch in his film is "an exaggeration" of his own grandmother. "My family as well as families they knew — I combined them into characters in the Sway family," he said. "The shadow of the once-glamorous life of the Sway family is what infuses the story with nostalgia," Gold continued. "The film's characters have an uncomfortable relationship with the past, where the nostalgia they either remember or imagine is intoxicating or toxic at the same time." The film's characters are uncomfortable in part because they feel they can't live up to the family's legacy, he said. "All the characters are in a state of longing to either return to the past or change the past, but neither is possible," he said. The film also depicts a clash between cultures of the wealthy summer camp owners and the year-round residents. Other aspects of the film drawing on Gold's personal experiences include a controversy over allowing jet skis to operate on the lake. SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY Gold said he was very appreciative of Blue Mountain Lake residents' cooperation with the filming, accomplished in 2012. "The whole community was very supportive," he said. "The Adirondacks is a wonderful environment — a perfect place to create a film about unfulfillable longing for the past." In addition to this weekend's festival, "The Song of Sway Lake" will be shown at the Lake Placid Film Festival, set for Oct. 26 through Oct. 28 and at a showing at the Indian Lake Theater at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21. This latter screening may include a reception at Crane Point Lodge check with the theater or Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts for updates. In addition, Sway Lake can be downloaded from iTunes, Amazon and GooglePlay.

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Film shot at Blue Mountain Lake to screen in area festivals

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