Filmmaker goes home with 'Holidays'

You may be cursing the stores that have already jumped the gun with Christmas displays, but you might want to let down your guard and download a film called "Happy Holidays."

The indie was produced, directed, and co-written by Rhode Island native James C. Ferguson and shot partly in that state. The cast and crew include more than a dozen of Ferguson's fellow Emerson grads.

Ferguson moved to Los Angeles after graduation in 1993, working on film crews and as a writer, and eventually raised money to make a movie - just not as much as he had originally hoped. "The script was the first thing I wrote when we moved here after college in 1993. I sort of looked in the drawer and tried to find something we could afford to shoot," he said. "We can't afford this superhero movie, we can't afford this monster movie, [but] we can afford this small, Woody-Allen-y, people-in-a-room-talking movie."

The final script, co-written by Ferguson and his friend Thomas J. Misuraca, tells the story of three guys in their 30s who reunite in their hometown for the first time since high school. It's a week before Christmas, and one is Catholic, one a Jew, and one an atheist. Oh, and one of them's gay, too. Suffice to say they have a lot to work out.

Among the Emerson friends who worked with Ferguson are main actors John Crye and Paul Hungerford; the third, Thomas Rhoads, went to Temple University but often hung out with them in Boston.

Also at Emerson, two years behind Ferguson, was his wife and sometime writing partner, Molly Beck Ferguson. Although she had attended many of his sketch comedy performances in Boston, the couple didn't meet until a party when they were both living in Los Angeles.

Following a few successful festival appearances, "Happy Holidays" will be available via online outlets CinemaNow, IndiePix, Jaman, Eyesoda, and WebMovieNow. But the biggie is that they just signed a deal that will make the film available on iTunes before the holidays. You can find the latest outlets at www.my space.com/happyholidaysthe movie.

The movie was shot in 2006 for $150,000 in 14 days - 10 in California and four in Rhode Island. Included was a day shooting at Rocky Hill School in East Greenwich, R.I., which Ferguson and director of photography Josh Blakeslee attended together as boys.

"It was weird to be in the gym we were in as fourth-graders and have it be just the same but a little smaller," Ferguson said.

WGBH HELPS FILMMAKERS: Two Boston documentary filmmakers are getting a leg up on their debut directorial projects thanks to WGBH. Kavita Pillay of Cambridge and Chico David Colvard of Somerville have been named filmmakers in residence at WGBH in a program that begins this month and lasts through next June. They'll get a stipend, workspace, and input from WGBH staff as they complete their films. Pillay began her film career as an associate producer with Northern Light Productions; her "My Good Name Is Stalin" began when she traveled to India as a Fulbright scholar in 2005 and met locals with Soviet-inspired names. Colvard teaches courses in Race, Law & Media at UMass-Boston; his "Family Affair" looks at the law, visual arts, and cultural identity.

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTIC: The Regent Theatre in Arlington is brightening up the holiday week with six family-friendly "Mary Poppins" singalong screenings, all during the day except for a 7 p.m. show on Saturday. A restored print of the 1964 family film with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke has been customized with on-screen song lyrics to facilitate audience harmony. There will also be compli- mentary prop bags for audience participation and an on-stage promenade for those who come in costume as their favorite "Poppins" character. Tickets are $15, $12 for kids under $12, and - here's a reason to invite the neighbors along - $10 for groups of 12 or more.

Information and tickets: www.regenttheatre.com/events/mary_poppins.htm

SCREENINGS OF NOTE: Orson Welles rarities assembled and presented by Stefan Drössler, the director of the Munich Film Museum, unspool at the Harvard Film Archive beginning Saturday. Nearly every film fan knows how "The Magnificent Ambersons" was butchered by studio editors. But few have seen the footage for which Welles interrupted his work on that film, a series of scenes shot under State Department sponsorship in South America. "It's All True," screening Saturday at 9:15, includes Welles's Brazilian scenes, wrapped in a documentary about the project and its eventual collapse. Also included in three days of Welles rarities are his "Chimes at Midnight" and "Othello," along with a compilation of TV appearances and samples from his unfinished thriller, "The Deep." hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2008novdec/welles.html#welles