Everything had been going well for the 13-day film shoot in Kingston until Mother Nature had other ideas.

“On our last day of shooting there was a major storm that came through,” said Eric McGinty, the writer-director of Stockade, which will have its premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival on Sept. 29. The production had set up to shoot a scene by a creek next to Sawkill Road when the rain started to pour. “The day before, we’d actually shot the protagonist wading through the creek and the next day the water level had gone sky high.”

It was the dog days of August two years ago, but anyone who’s been in the area this rainy summer knows the storms can be fierce. “We almost got flooded out,” recalled producer Anna Sang Park. The cast had been staying nearby and were under threat of evacuation. “That was pretty crazy,” recalled McGinty. “Luckily, the water never overran the top of the stream, but it came awfully close.”

As artists struggling to see their project through, they persevered. And that is one of the themes of Stockade, a noir thriller about an immigrant Lebanese painter in New York City who agrees to deliver a mysterious package to Kingston to earn money toward extending her artist’s visa. The movie is about struggling artists, antiquities trafficking and “how much effort it takes for international artists to come here, to try to actually work in the States and create,” explained Park.

Starring Lebanese actor Sarah Bitar and Iranian actor Bahar Beihaghi, there’s an international element to the film even as it’s set locally. “We have two actors who come from pretty oppressed places right now,” Park said. And while the film isn’t overtly political, it does focus on the challenges artists face. “It’s not just about artistic ambition. It’s about the will to continue to create,” she said.

“Stockade is inspired by my experience as an artist who’s tracked the fine art world in New York City for many years,” McGinty said. “It’s a meditation on the pursuit of the mythic American dream.”

Meira Blaustein, Woodstock Film Festival co-founder and executive director, was immediately interested in the movie. “The title ‘Stockade’ first drew my attention to the film, as it is the name of the beloved historic district of Uptown Kingston, synonymous with the area,” she said. “Once watching the film, we were struck by how full of adventure and intrigue it was, and how well-made it was.”

The filmmakers, who are married with a teenage daughter, both have international backgrounds. McGinty grew up in Washington D.C. and Paris with his American father and French mother. Park describes herself as “an immigrant kid. I came from Korea when I was eight.” They met in 1996 while working on a Sundance Film Festival Award-winning film called Sunday and had long wanted to make a movie in the Hudson Valley. “Kington’s a very photogenic town, what can I say,” McGinty said with a laugh. They bought a home Uptown near the Stockade District six years ago and now split their time between Kingston and Brooklyn.

The two made Stockade through their production company, Veronique Films, which they started in 2010 after working with bigger movie companies. McGinty has been an assistant director and location scout and was the American first assistant director for 1994’s The Professional, a French co-production directed by Luc Besson and starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and a 12-year-old Natalie Portman in her first major film.

Park has produced for film and TV outlets, such as PBS, ABC and others, and wrote and produced the award-winning short film trilogy The Cho Stories. Their company’s first joint feature film, Wallabout, won the Best Narrative Feature Award at the 2015 Bushwick Film Festival.

“After that we said, ‘We gotta make another one!’” Park recalled. “We wanted to make a film in the Hudson Valley because we love it there and we always dreamed of going up there.”

An indie film shot on a tight budget, they filmed a good portion of the movie in their own house in Kingston, but other scenes were shot in the Stockade district’s commercial area. “We also shot in Rosendale, at the Soy restaurant in their garden,” said McGinty, and they plan to meet up with cast and crew members at the Asian bistro before the second Woodstock Film Festival screening, at the Rosendale Theatre, on Oct. 1.

Though their budget and crew were small, they strove to employ people from the Hudson Valley as much as they could, including Sam Sullivan, owner of SOS Sound Studio in Tillson, who was their sound mixer.

Blaustein noted that Stockade fits in perfectly with the film festival’s goals. “One of the clear missions of The Woodstock Film Festival is to place emphasis on the Hudson Valley as a hub of art, and particularly of independent film. As such, featuring films like Stockade, shot and produced in the local area, allows us to lean into and further develop this region as a place of cinematic innovation and growth.”

McGinty, Park and their whole crew are eager to see the film up on the big screen. “During Covid, people couldn’t even go to in-person film festivals,” Park said. “Woodstock goes out of their way to make your premiere an adventure and we’re at the Tinker Street Cinema, which we’re really thrilled about. It’s amazing to be able to go to movies in person, so we’re really looking forward to connecting with the audience.”

McGinty agreed. “Half the film was shot in Kingston and the surrounding area,” he said, “so it’s very exciting for us to be able to premiere in the best festival up in that area.”

You can catch Stockade and other Hudson Valley-made films at the 24th Annual Woodstock Film Festival, Sept. 26-Oct. 1. For film details and other screenings, visit the festival's website.

Screenings:

Stockade: Friday, Sept. 29, 12:45 p.m., Tinker Street Cinema, 132 Tinker St., Woodstock, and Sunday, Oct. 1, 4 p.m., Rosendale Theatre, 408 Main St., Rosendale
Blackout: Friday, Sept. 29, 9:45 p.m., Tinker Street Cinema, Woodstock
Down By the Riverside: Wednesday, Sept. 27, 7:30 p.m., Bearsville Theater, 291 Tinker St., Woodstock
Summer Solstice, Friday, Sept. 29, 8:15 p.m., at the Woodstock Playhouse, 103 Mill Hill Rd., Woodstock, and Sun. Oct. 1, 9 p.m. at Upstate Films (Saugerties) Orpheum Theatre 1, 156 Main St., Saugerties