HOULTON, Maine — The Temple Theater is rolling out the red carpet on Friday for the local premiere of the award-winning documentary that features the town of Houlton’s preparation for the 2024 total solar eclipse.
Houlton gained instant global notoriety as the last U.S. stop along the sun’s path of totality and the place forecasters predicted to be one of the best clear-sky viewing locations. The 78-minute film, “A Moment in the Sun,” explores how a rural community of 6,000 pulled together to welcome nearly 30,000 eclipse chasers, scientists and tourists from around the world.
Shot all on location in Aroostook County, New York City-based directors Mia Weinberger and Tom van Kalken shadowed several local people in the months leading up to the once-in-a-lifetime event.
“We were drawn to this story not just because of the eclipse,” said Weinberger, “but because of the people we met while we were up there.”
Van Kalken said the film at its core is really about the human stories that take place all around us all the time.
On Friday, starting at 5:30 p.m., premiere ticket holders can walk the red carpet, get their photo taken and enjoy the cocktail hour prior to the film’s 7 p.m. showtime.
The documentary will be shown simultaneously in the Temple’s two auditoriums with cameras in each location so people on the opposite side will be able to see each other and participate in the question and answer session with the filmmakers and the featured characters, said theater manager Jason Howe.
“As far as I know, this kind of event has never been done in a movie theater before, much less at the Temple,” he said.
Johanna Johnston and a handful of others featured in the feature-length film attended the documentary’s international premiere in July at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, where the documentary won the prestigious Tourmaline Award for Best Feature Film. The film also won Best Feature Film at the Maine Outdoor Film Festival in Portland.
“Watching the film brought me right back to what it felt like in the middle of planning — the uncertainty, the blind faith, and the trust we had to place in each other,” said Johnston, executive director of the Southern Aroostook Development Corp., one of four community members featured in the film.
“The storytelling is incredible, and it shows just how hard this community worked to rise to the occasion for a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Johnston said.
As the time grew closer to the actual eclipse, the filmmakers focused their lens on a few locals including Johnston who, along with a team of planners, started the preparation three years in advance. Also featured are a local astronomer who shared his first eclipse with his late husband in 1997, a local entrepreneur with 800 eclipse-themed T-shirts to sell and a couple who got married right at the moment of totality.
“There’s something incredibly moving about watching a small town of a few thousand people rise to meet the moment and welcome tens of thousands of strangers,” van Kalken said.
The Houlton-based feature-length documentary began a bit by chance when the New York filmmakers started thinking about viewing the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. As they explored the swath of American towns cast into total darkness by the moon’s shadow, the filmmaking duo decided to tell the story of Houlton.
“I was watching a video of a Houlton eclipse planning public forum and I was like, ‘I love this town, I love these people and it’s so interesting and cool that it’s the last place to see the eclipse in the country,’” Weinberger said.
The evening opens with a short film, “The Comeback Mill,” directed and produced by Josh Gerritsen and followed by the feature presentation.
Organizers are encouraging attendees to dress as they would for a wedding to walk the red carpet, although it is by no means mandatory, said Howe.
The theater still has a few tickets available for Friday night’s event, but they are getting low.
Tickets are $10 each and include a free small popcorn as well as hors d’oeuvres during the cocktail hour. Tickets are available at the Temple Theatre ticket counter or by visiting templehoulton.com.
