A Western senior recently released a film that has been selected to be a part of The Trail Running Film Festival.
Max Romey directed and produced the documentary, “3022 ft.”, covering the Mount Marathon Race in Seward, Alaska. The film will tour Atlanta, Austin and Los Angeles.
3022 ft. was a finalist in the Best Feature and Best Cinematography categories at The Trail Running Film Festival.
The movie took about a year to make and required him to invest at least 2,000 hours of his time, Romey said.
Mount Marathon is among the oldest footraces in the United States. The film covers the race through the perspective of the people who participated in it.
The documentary was released on June 24 by Romey’s production team, Max Romey Productions. T
he team consists of Romey and Western graduates Natalie Fedak and Haley O’Connor, along with senior Dylan Green.
Fedak helped direct, produce and write the film, O’Connor focused on customer service and finances, and Green was the public relations, communications and marketing manager.
The Trail Running Film Festival is a great, because teams apply to only one festival but get 30 different showings, Fedak said.
O'Connor said being part of the festival allows people to get out there and see the movie, without requiring the crew to travel along with the film.
“For independent filmmakers what you want to do is find as many outlets of publicity as you can to push your story and film out there.
One of those main outlets is getting into film festivals,” Green said.
Romey said the film highlighted the closest year in the race's history.
“You had a full time mom running against an Olympian, running against a rookie, running against a woman battling her demons with drug abuse,” Romey said.
He was inspired to do the movie because the race blew his mind, Romey said.
“I was like, ‘This is amazing’. I couldn’t find any movies so I just figured I’d make one and it turned into something much larger than I thought,” Romey said.
Aside from producing the film, Romey also received about a third of the funds through Indiegogo, Romey said.
Indiegogo is the largest global fundraising site and specializes in helping individuals, nonprofits and businesses raise money online, according to the Indiegogo website.
“I would love to be able to continue to make films that make a difference, which is the hardest thing to do because it’s very hard to get somebody to fund something that they can’t see any profit in,” Romey said.
Making these films could be one of the most meaningful things he could do with his life, Romey said.
