PORT TOWNSEND — If you were to step back in time — re-enter your childhood — you might choose the sweetest memories.
The scents of a homemade supper filling the kitchen.
Your mother telling you a funny story and interrupting herself to dance with your father as soon as he comes in the door.
Such are the memories of Mauchen, the storyteller in “The Last of Us,” a Port Townsend-made movie premiering Friday night at the Rose Theatre.
Tickets for the 10 p.m. screening are sold out, but film lovers are invited to the pre-show gala at 8 p.m. at The Undertown cafe, 211 Taylor St.
DVDs of the movie and CDs of its original score will be on sale during the party.
Then, on Sunday, comes another screening of “Us,” and theater owner Rocky Friedman said there are still plenty of seats available.
Tickets are $10, and showtime is 10:30 a.m. at the Rose, 235 Taylor St., downtown. Advance tickets are available at the Rose box office; information awaits at 360-385-1089 and www.TheLastofUs.com.
In the movie, we follow Mauchen, the sole surviving member of a family that lived in Prague as World War II began.
His story is the product of a passionate band of filmmakers who call themselves Running Tiger Productions, including directors Sam Force and Jeremiah Morgan and actress and publicist Amy Sousa.
The music comes from composer and guitarist Paul Chasman, who makes his home west of Port Angeles.
“The Last of Us” is handmade, from Wes Cecil’s script to Mama’s dress embroidered by Libby Strickland, a recent Port Townsend High School graduate.
Sousa, who plays Mama, said the picture came together on a taut budget of about $35,000.
Yet the feeling of the film is rich and warm, Sousa said.
“Us” tells the tale of Mauchen as a grown man returning to the family table, where his mother is always cooking, always caring for her husband and children.
The tiny apartment where the story is set “looks really beautiful,” Sousa added.
“The cinematography is so well-done. . . . Jeremiah really had a vision for what’s possible.”
Vision, and desire. Morgan and Force devoted much of 2010 to filming and editing “The Last of Us” after it first appeared a year ago as a stage play at the Chameleon Theater in Port Townsend.
They brought together local actors as well as performers who used to live on the Olympic Peninsula, including Richard Clairmont, who plays the grown-up Mauchen.
The character is in his early 70s when the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989; the event fills his mind with recollections of his prewar boyhood.
The rest of Mauchen’s family died in the Holocaust, though he doesn’t know exactly what happened to them.
What he remembers are the fairy tales Mama told: one about a frog that falls into a bucket of milk and escapes by churning it into butter; and another about a hunter, a she-wolf and her son.
These myths, Sousa said, are stitched inside Mauchen’s own life story.
The movie’s look is authentic, she believes, thanks to gifts from the community.
Friends of the filmmakers donated antique furniture, a vintage teapot came from the Wild Sage tea shop in Port Townsend, and Sousa herself found a Russian tarot deck for Mama to use.
“I was impressed that we were able to do so much with so little,” the actress said, adding that David and Alison Hero provided the main location: the basement of the Silverwater Cafe at the corner of Washington and Taylor streets.
The production company name, Running Tiger, comes from the feeling the directors got from creating “The Last of Us.”
“Jeremiah [Morgan] and I often felt like there was this incredibly powerful entity driving us forward to work these long hours. It was ‘You just have to do it,'” said Force.
Both he and Morgan — who also portrays Papa in the movie — work day jobs in Port Townsend.
Morgan is a restaurateur at the Owl Sprit Cafe while Force is a producer with the Flying Circle F movie and video company.
After this weekend, Running Tiger will submit “The Last of Us” to festivals across the country, including, of course, the Port Townsend Film Festival in September.
“Us” is a celebration of family bonds, Force said; it’s about finding laughter and nourishment at the supper table, however simple the meal.
And the fact that the project came together, he said, shows how a high-quality film can be created by people with more imagination than money.
“It was empowering to make and will be empowering to see,” said Force. “We put a lot of effort into keeping people feeling that cinema magic.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
