Feature, 83 min, Not rated Q&A with the filmmakers
The feature: Marqueetown
Audience Choice Award - Best Documentary Feature
Directors: Joseph Beyer, Jordan Anderson
Documentary Feature, United States, 2024, 83 min, Color
No one fights to preserve a multiplex, but some people will risk everything to save a marquee. Through booms and busts, Delft Theatres Inc.—and its innovative gem, The Nordic—endured in Marquette for almost 100 years, even as the world changed endlessly around them.
Local kid Bernie Rosendahl's modern crusade to restore the historic arthouse to its former glory leads filmmakers to discover a hidden cinema empire in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Portraying the fascinating history of motion pictures through one iconic screen, Marqueetown is the true story of chasing your dreams, redefining failure and success, and reembracing the enduring magic of movies.
Our film is 100% Made in Michigan with an entirely Michigan cast and crew (who live here year-round). Our story is set in the Upper Peninsula and we filmed in Marquette, Skandia, Traverse City, Elk Rapids, Honor, Frankfort, and Birmingham Hills.
Directors: Joseph Beyer, Jordan Anderson
Writers: Joseph Beyer, Jordan Anderson
Producers: Kathleen Glynn, Diana Milock, Kathleen Verduin, Ward and Mary Gillett, Terry Lynn Carrithers, Joe and Katie Anderson, Christal Frost Anderson, Beth Milligan, Gary Gatzke, Erin Anderson Whiting, Ben Whiting
Key Cast: Bernie Rosendahl, Anne White, Scott Anderson, Ed Wales, Marlene Glass Beaudry, Paul Rogers, Rusty Bowers, Lanni Lantto, Jim Koski, Peggy Frazier, Mona Lang, Tyler Tichelaar, Mark Dupont, Jeff O'Neill, William Streur, Tom Vear, Jack Deo
Joseph Beyer (Writer, Director, Editor) relocated to his home state of Michigan from California in 2018, after being an executive staffer to the nonprofit Sundance Institute for more than 14 years, last as Director of Digital Initiatives where he led strategy, creative development and operation of digital content, social media and special Institute projects. Later he joined The Redford Center as Director of Marketing and Distribution using film projects to advocate for environmental and social impact.
He has been the Executive Director to the Traverse City Film Festival, Director of Audience Engagement and Strategy to MyNorth Media, Executive Director to Michigan Legacy Art Park, and Executive Director to Parallel 45 Theatre.
Joe has volunteered locally on the Traverse City Arts Commission Art Selection Panel, the Collection Committee of the Dennos Museum Center, and recently joined the Fresh Coast Film Festival Board of Directors. He is a regular contributor to Interlochen Public Radio, Northern Express, and The Boardman Review.
Jordan Anderson (Writer, Director, Editor) has spent a career in media and storytelling, fueled by his insatiable creative interests and the rapid pace of change in technology and how companies communicate and connect with their fans and users. In 2020 he founded his own creative agency, named Pancake Boy Productions, which conceives and produces multi-platform campaigns in video, audio and social media for companies around the northern Michigan region.
Prior to launching the company, Jordan was Creative Director to Midwestern Production for over seven years, designing and producing content campaigns for clients and for the award-winning array of radio and online outlets. His love and knowledge of music, along with his keen senses to read an audience and room, made him one of the region's top DJs and Music Producer for live events, or as he calls it "Guest Movement Consultant." His company Mr. Music continues rocking even today.
He has served as an active founding volunteer to Parallel 45 Theatre and often produces content for local nonprofit organizations and fundraising efforts as an active member of his community. Jordan is a graduate of Central Michigan University where he studied Broadcast and Cinematic Arts. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Traverse City Historical Society, recently launching a new podcast series exploring regional history from a contemporary point of view.
When we first discovered Bernie Rosendahl's story to save the movie theater of his youth, a personal quest that started in 2018, we thought it would be a simple comeback story. As we dug deeper into the rabbit hole of people, places and history Bernie's research unleashed, it became impossible not to see the story of the Nordic Theater as the story of all theaters: the booms, the busts, the rise and the fall of 100 years of cinema culture in the heart of small town communities.
Audiences have shown us that the story of the Nordic is everyone's story of a dream that didn't come through, or what it means to redefine success and failure in one's life - something universal and true to the human experience.
As children of the 1980s and 1990s, we also found ourselves creating a sort of emotional obituary for the cinema experiences of our youth in the background of dedicating ourselves to telling Bernie's story faithfully and in great detail.
Creatively as documentarians, we had to retroactively bring the theater and characters to life, since many of them were gone and so too were the theaters. In response to that challenge, we turned to an innocent hand-made aesthetic for recreations and a storyworld that required a suspension of disbelief - intentionally multi-dimensional and playful.
During filming in 2023, the story became even more relevant and urgent as more arthouse cinemas closed in Michigan, including The Maple Theater in Birmingham Hills where we filmed our interview with Bernie - we had hoped to show the film there someday.
"Marqueetown" will be touring Michigan in the spring of 2024 in a series of benefit screenings at arthouse cinemas, many of them now run as nonprofits, in hopes the film will spark local conversations and celebrations of these still vibrant centers of humanity.
Fresh Coast Film Festival (Marquette, Michigan), October 21, 2023, Sneak Peek Work in Progress Screening, Honorable Mention
Thunder Bay International Film Festival (Alpena, Michigan), January 27, 2024, Part One Excerpt, Finalist Sanctuary Selections Competition
Capital City Film Festival (Lansing, Michigan), April 20, 2024, Official Selection
Central Michigan International Film Festival (Mount Pleasant, Michigan), April 5, 2024, Official Selection, Jury Award Best Michigan Documentary
Green Bay (Wisconsin) Film Festival, September 7, 2024, Official Selection
Arizona International Film Festival (Tucson, Arizona), April 26, 2024, Arizona Premiere
Beaver Island (Michigan) Film Festival, September 20, 2024, Lake Michigan Archipelago Premiere
Unspooled Film & Animation Festival (Menominee, Wisconsin), May 10, 2024, Wisconsin Premiere
St. Ignace (Michigan) Film Festival, October 4, 2024, Official Selection
Cinetopia Film Festival (Ann Arbor, Michigan), June 16, 2024, Official Selection
Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) International Film Festival, November 21, 2024, Official Selection
Sunday, Sep 15, 6:00pm
Soo Theatre
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