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James Khanlarian
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Movie about Maine lobstermen lights up the state's small cinemas
Photo / Courtesy, Kyle Walton
"The Ghost Trap" is doing well with audiences at smaller cinemas in Maine such as the Colonial in Belfast, shown here.
While it's a turbulent time for small cinemas, some Maine venues are getting an unexpected off-season boost from screenings of a new, independent feature film set on the midcoast and shot at several locations in the state.
“The Ghost Trap" is a drama based the eponymous novel by K. Stephens, about a young lobsterman forced to choose between right and wrong when his girlfriend suffers a traumatic head injury and a rival lobstering family sabotages his gear.
The film, released Nov. 1 on streaming platforms and select theaters, is doing well in small cinemas across the state where the story takes place.
“Early November, before Thanksgiving weekend, is always a deficit month to operate a movie theater,” Kyle Walton, executive director of the Hawthorne Theatre and Arts Collaborative, told Mainebiz.
The nonprofit was formed in 2023 to rescue Belfast's Colonial Theatre, which dates back to 1912 and was forced to go dark in September 2022 due to financial difficulties. It reopened in November 2023.
While the Colonial is still operating in the red, Walton is encouraged by the fact that after nine shows there, 450 cinephiles had come to see "The Ghost Trap."
“'The Ghost Trap' has been a lone bright spot on the balance sheet,” Walton said. "There have been operating days where it accounted for 80% to 90% of daily box office receipts.”
The movie made its New England premiere in July at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, and was the opening-night show of the inaugural Vacationland Film Festival, in August at Biddeford's City Theater.
The film later returned to Waterville's Maine Film Center, which is housed inside the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.
Mike Perreault, executive director of the center, told Mainebiz about screening "The Ghost Trap" — via email, as he was returning to Maine from a film festival in Rwanda.
“It was a thrilling experience to screen ‘The Ghost Trap’ as the centerpiece film during the 27th Maine International Film Festival, and audiences returned to see it again at the Maine Film Center in October, ahead of its regular run release, with the filmmakers in attendance for a discussion,” Perreault said.
“We're honored to showcase filmmaking that's produced in Maine, especially when the communities and neighbors that support these projects can proudly see themselves on the big screen."
Steve Lyons, director of the Maine Film Office, sees the film as a success on multiple fronts.
"The film's reception indicates that seeing Maine on the big screen instills a sense of pride, particularly because lobstering is such an important part of the state's identity," he told Mainebiz. "Strong box office sales for films like 'The Ghost Trap' are an encouraging sign for film production in Maine, and great news for the theaters that screen them.”
'Not a Marvel film'
James Khanlarian, the film’s director, told Mainebiz that the production crew had a good experience filming in Maine.
"We were very fortunate to befriend and get the support of the local lobstermen early on, and we filmed along the Penobscot Bay from Port Clyde to Northport," he told Mainebiz.
"It makes a big difference when you show people that you're here to tell a meaningful story instead of exploiting them, so we had a ton of working lobstermen take time off and donate their boats ... The best way to pay them back is to show their profession and their way of life in an accurate and honorable fashion. By the reactions, I think we'e achieved that."
He's equally pleased at the support from small Maine cinemas screening the film.
“It would be wonderful for the film to play in a thousand theaters across the country, but we’re not a Marvel film. We’re not even a studio film,” he said. “So it’s really wonderful to get support from theaters like the Colonial in Belfast, the Strand in Rockland and others," he said.
“It’s a film about real people in real situations, and so these intimate theaters are a better fit for us. We’d love for the film to run yearly during lobster season, but there are hurdles.”
The support is especially welcome given that the independent filmmakers didn’t have a distribution deal in place beforehand, as a bigger production would have.
“We raised the money from private investors and made the movie and had to show distributors that it was a good film,” Khanlarian said. His team is still looking for a good international distribution deal, and he said he's confident of landing one soon.
While "The Ghost Trap" was the first film Khanlarian has shot in Maine, he said, “I can’t wait to do more.”
And in Belfast, the Colonial hopes to screen more films with a Maine connection or identity, according to Walton.
"As independent movie theaters continue to gravitate toward independent or enterprise content," he said, "the production of commercial-level films that reflect the locale they were shot in is extremely vital to theatrical exhibition within the state of Maine."
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