PORT TOWNSEND — We’ve lived through one long, lonely moment, Adam Reid believes.
“We’re emerging from our cocoons, and a lot of us have forgotten how to behave as humans,” so doing the simplest things feels so weird, the filmmaker said.
“Hello Lonesome,” Reid’s movie about human connection, is the Port Townsend Film Festival Pic for July, a 2010 film chosen for this second pandemic summer.
The 93-minute drama is available for streaming from today through July 11, with tickets at $10 per household at PTfilmfest.com. The website has details about viewing the movie, while more information can be found by phoning 360-379-1333 or emailing info@ptfilmfest.com.
As always with the monthly PTFF Pics, a short interview between the filmmaker and festival executive director Janette Force is part of the package, and half of ticket sales go directly to the filmmaker.
In this movie, Reid introduces six characters: three pairs of people who find each other at the right time. Their connections are unlikely ones, trying at times, and funny often.
“Hello Lonesome” ventures inside their homes, where these isolated souls navigate the process of giving and receiving love — with someone they never expected to arrive in their lives.
In an interview from his home studio in Maplewood, N.J., Reid fondly remembered his first feature film. He directed “Hello Lonesome” in just 15 days for a budget of $50,000 — using friends’ homes as movie sets — then took it to festivals around North America, winning awards as he went.
“Hello Lonesome” screened in fall 2011 at the Port Townsend Film Festival, which Reid said is “not a see-and-be-seen festival … it’s about the movies, truly.”
He loved watching festival-goers’ responses to his movie; “if I’m in a theater with the audience, I can feel how it’s going,” Reid said.
“You can feel the quiet during a dramatic moment … When we go to the movies, we’re craving that experience, what we feel in the theater, together.”
Watching his debut film 10 years after its release makes him want to make another intimate movie, said Reid, 44.
At his core, he’s a storyteller; since “Hello Lonesome” came out, he’s become an author and co-creator of “The Tiny Chef Show,” a cooking program on multiple social media platforms.
On the “Hello Lonesome” movie posters, the tag line is “A little hello can go a long way.” For Reid, that’s still a wise motto, now more than ever.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
Sabrina Lloyd awaits her new partner in “Hello Lonesome,” the Port Townsend Film Festival Pic streaming this week. (Mark Rosenberg/Hello Lonesome)
