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- This event has passed.
Empire Falls
March 15, 2020, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
FreeCancelled due to Coronavirus
“Hollywood does not always hunt for grim reality, but that’s what it found here. Waterville [was] the perfect backdrop for the filming of Empire Falls, based on Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with the same title about a rundown, blue-collar Maine community where the economy never recovered after its shirt factory shut down. So Paul Newman moved to town, as did his wife, actress Joanne Woodward. And Ed Harris. And Helen Hunt, Robin Wright Penn and Aidan Quinn. Lynn Kippax, the location manager and a Maine resident, spent months driving around the state. When he started zeroing in on Waterville, he found that his habit of wearing Hathaway shirts endeared him to its residents and smoothed the way for filming. ‘In the end, the town and its characters have a real redemption, and the book’s ending is one of hope,’ he said. ‘I hope Waterville has that.'” – Kirsten Scharnbberg, Chicago Tribune. (TV-14, 208 min.)
This film is being screened as part of Maine in the Movies. To celebrate Maine’s bicentennial, the Maine Film Center and 19 other arts and education organizations and independent cinemas have joined together to present from March 5-15, 2020, in 17 cities, this festival of 35 films that are set in Maine.
Three of these films will be shown in Waterville:
- Leave Her to Heaven at 7:00 PM Thursday, March 5, 2020 at the Waterville Opera House,
- Wet Hot American Summer at 7:00 PM Thursday, March 12, 2020 at Railroad Square, and
- Empire Falls at 1:00 PM Sunday, March 15, 2020 at Railroad Square.