Coming up this Thursday and Friday at the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven will be a film series featuring stories from around the Great Lakes.
The museum says its Sweetwater Film Showcase will present a total of ten films, ranging from full features to shorts and covering a variety of topics around the lakes. One of the films will be “Lake Leelanau, Spirit of the Lake,” tracing Lake Leelanau’s story from its formation by ancient glaciers to its significance Native Americans and early settlers. Producer Keith Patterson tells us he teamed up with the local historical society to tell the story of the community that sprang up around the lake.
“It’s a the big community of multi-generational family that have been there for a long time, and we’re really trying to capture not only the the factual history of it but also capture the nostalgia and memories that people experience when they go there,” Patterson said.
Patterson says Lake Leelanau has always been a draw to him.
“My family had a cottage in Traverse City when I was growing up, so I spent a lot of time in Sleeping Bear Dunes, but we would also trailer our boat from our lake around to different lakes in northern Michigan, and Lake Leelanau was always one of our favorite destinations.”
Patterson is a graduate of the University of Michigan who spent years working in the entertainment industry out west. He says when he came back to Michigan, he found his true calling sharing stories from around the state. He’s produced documentaries about Sleeping Bear Dunes and the craft brewing industry in Grand Rapids, and says he looks forward to taking part in a director’s Q&A at the Michigan Maritime Museum Thursday.
It will be $20 to attend each day of screenings at the Sweetwater Film Showcase. The museum says everyone is welcome to come out for its first film series, something they’ll bring back next year if all goes well.
