The Rural We: Cynthia Wade
The award-winning filmmaker will be screening her latest documentaries at BIFF next weekend.
Cynthia Wade behind the scenes filming "Merpeople." Photo: A. Seymore
When we last spoke to filmmaker Cynthia Wade in 2015, she had turned her award-winning documentary, “Freeheld,” into a full-length film starring Julianne Moore and Ellen Page. Since then, she has produced documentaries for PBS, Netflix, HBO, and Disney+, winning film festival awards, Emmy and Academy awards and nominations. On Saturday, June 3, the Berkshire International Film Festival will hold a free screening of her latest works: a double feature of The Flagmakers (which is now being developed into a Broadway musical) and the first episode of her Netflix docuseries MerPeople. While she moved to Los Angeles in 2019 for work reasons, she lived in the Berkshires for nine years and still thinks of it as home.
“MerPeople” just released on Netflix worldwide and I’m really excited about it. I was director/showrunner/executive producer, probably the seventh person who interviewed for that project, which was being developed by the producers of "Queer Eye." We had to get it out before Disney’s “Little Mermaid” because we knew there was going to be mer-mania. I had four main editors, a fifth polish editor, then a sixth editor who shot the opening title sequence. Ther were four story producers who were watching all the footage and stringing together the highlights. This was done from all over the country.
Cynthia Wade behind the scenes of "Merpeople." Photo: A. Seymore
The challenge was how to turn the idea of the merfolk world into something where there’s action, a stake, a story? I interviewed and spoke to and zoomed with dozens of merfolk. It’s quite an extensive world. What would be character defining, but actually moves the story forward, and still end each episode on a cliff hanger? Episode one is all about world building, episode two is character building, episode three lays out the higher stakes, and episode four is the grand finale.
“The Flagmaker” is a National Geographic short documentary that I co-directed with Sharon Liese, about the locals, immigrants and refugees who work in the largest American flag manufacturing plant, located in Wisconsin. The musical is being developed by Mark Gordon, a prolific producer. He saw the film and asked, what else do you have? We had all this extra footage on the cutting-room floor that could be inspirational. He felt it was right for a musical — it can say a lot about democracy, about the American dream. The book writer for the musical, John J. Caswell, Jr. is based in Hudson, and will be directed by Sasheem Ali.
I am leaving for Italy the day after BIFF for a screenwriting retreat with Berkshires co-writer Nannina Gilder to continue to work on our years-long script about the Hancock Shakers. Jennifer Trainer Thompson (former head of Hancock Shaker Village) is helping us develop the film, which eventually we will shoot locally.
We moved to LA because it was better for my husband’s and my career, but the Berkshires are still is the place where it feels the most like coming home. My mom lives in Great Barrington, my sister [novelist] Ali Benjamin lives in Williamstown with her family, and both of my daughters are heading back to Camp Hi-Rock in Mt. Washington [in the Berkshires] to work as counselors this summer.
