‘Boatbuilders’ Review: A Mellow Maine Boatyard Study That Offers All the Quiet Rewards of Fine Craftsmanship in Action — SkimNews
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- Luke Lorentzen's documentary 'Boatbuilders' tracks the 16-month construction of a 56-foot luxury sailing yacht named Kiandra at the Brooklin Boat Yard in coastal Maine.
- Brooklin Boat Yard operates in a harbor town of just 827 people with an entirely male staff, led by boatyard chief Brian, whom the film depicts as a firm but paternal figure who even handles firing an underperforming worker.
- "Boatbuilders" screened in the nonfiction out-of-competition section at the Venice Film Festival — a "documentarian's documentary" in the granular, process-focused spirit of Frederick Wiseman — and is set for its North American premiere as the opening film of the Camden International Film Festival in Maine.
- Project manager Trent, a sturdy sort expecting his first child with his wife, is one of the few workers whose non-working life the film glimpses, though Lorentzen treats the men mainly as a collective rather than individuals.
- The yacht Kiandra is built for a millionaire finance adviser described as "worlds removed" from the people of Brooklin, who notes the workers are "like the ducks on the pond, super mellow on top and paddling furiously underwater."
- The completed yacht is painted regal hunter green and valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the film's reflective climax arriving at a fall sailing regatta that puts a period on the 16-month project before another begins.
Why it matters: The film gives a 16-month, all-male Maine boatyard — a town of 827 people — a platform at Venice and the opening slot at Camden, positioning Lorentzen's observational craft documentary as a respite from flashier festival fare while making its quiet, low-pressure subject accessible to documentary distributors who previously backed his 'Midnight Family' and Sundance-winning 'A Still Small Voice.'
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