Mosaic Films
Still from Denial
Last week, Indiewire called
Denial one of "
11 Films We Cannot Wait to See at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival." The indie-film news source offered a tantalizingly cryptic description of the documentary directed by Vermont native Derek Hallquist:
Some of the best documentaries end up in drastically different places then [sic] they began … Derek Hallquist’s film seems to follow along similar lines, ostensibly beginning as a deep dive into the history of alternative energy sources in his home state of Vermont. But as Hallquist looks closer at his family’s involvement in those efforts, the on-camera interviews reveal more than he expected.
So what exactly does
Denial reveal?
Vermonters may already know, particularly if they read Terri Hallenbeck's
cover story about Christine Hallquist, CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, last November. (Don't click that link if you want to go into the documentary knowing zilch.)
Those who did read the story now have a chance to get filmmaker Derek's perspective (he's Christine's son), and to see how his film intertwines contentious energy issues with other realities that some might prefer to "deny." Pride Center of Vermont will host
Denial's Vermont premiere this
Wednesday, June 15, at Main Street Landing Film House in Burlington.
A $25 ticket (with partial proceeds donated to the Pride Center and 350.org) includes admission to a reception at 6 p.m., the screening at 7 p.m., and a subsequent panel discussion with Derek Hallquist, Christine Hallquist, Kim Fountain of Pride Center of Vermont and Maeve McBride of 350 Vermont.
More info here.
Denial is the feature directorial debut of Derek Hallquist, who now lives in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and served as director of photography on Eugene Jarecki's Sundance award-winning
The House I Live In. (Jarecki executive-produced
Denial.) In 2011, Hallquist's company Green River Pictures produced a short doc called "The Opiate Effect," which went on to screen widely at schools and rehab centers.
Denial has been in the works for a while. In 2012, when the film was tentatively titled
Power to the People,
Hallquist told Seven Days he wanted to show audiences "electricity from behind the curtain." The results seem to have turned out to be, well, electric. Find out on Wednesday.