PORT TOWNSEND — Tickets to a documentary on the “Port Townsend five” go on sale at 2:30 p.m. today.
The men who range in age from 24 to 70-plus, shape wooden sticks into musical bows. They have the title roles in “The Bowmakers,” a documentary film that takes viewers up and over Port Townsend and into the forests of Brazil.
Producer Rocky Friedman, owner of the Rose Theatre and a resident of Port Townsend for 37 years, and director-cinematographer Ward Serrill, a veteran filmmaker who has lived in Port Townsend for seven years, worked on the film for two years.
Tickets to the 6 p.m. Aug. 17 premiere at the Rose Theatre will go on sale at rosetheatre.com and at the box office at 235 Taylor St.
Friedman expects them to sell fast.
He said he discovered in 2017 that his hometown is a mecca for makers of the things connecting musicians to resonant strings.
He and Serrill went on a journey that included hidden studios in Port Townsend, France, Portland, Ore., and New York City, as well as forests and neighborhoods in Brazil.
They heard often about Charles Espey, the Port Townsend septuagenarian known as the grandfather of modern bowmaking. Also highlighted are three of his apprentices: Ole Kanestrom, Robert Morrow and Cody Kowalski, as well as master bowmaker Paul Siefried, who is, like the rest, a resident of Port Townsend.
After the premiere, “The Bowmakers” will be part of the Sept. 19-22 Port Townsend Film Festival, and a week after that it will start its theatrical run at the Rose Theatre. Film festivals near and far, DVD release and online streaming are farther into the future.
