ARTICLE
Back by popular demand, The Woods Hole Film Festival is proud to present a special event encore screening of John Stimpson’s holiday film, A CAPE COD CHRISTMAS. The film, starring Katie LeClerc and Brent Bailey was shot in Falmouth in 2020/21 during the pandemic and features many prominent locations throughout town. The film will screen on Friday, December 1 at 7 pm at Clapp (formerly Lillie) Auditorium at the Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole. Writer/Director John Stimpson will participate in a Q&A following the screening. The previous screenings, which also coincided with Falmouth’s Holidays-By-the-Sea weekend, sold out quickly because audiences were excited to see a film that was shot locally and to gather for a special event. Due to the enthusiastic reception of the film by the community, the Woods Hole Film Festival approached Stimpson about reprising an encore special event screening in 2023 and he quickly agreed. As a filmmaker, John Stimpson is a veteran of the holiday film genre that are featured on channels such as Lifetime and Hallmark, having made 7 TV Christmas films to date. Stimpson and his family are summer residents in Falmouth, and he was excited to make a film that he could shoot locally and include many local residents in all aspects of the production. About the film: MARGOT (Katie LeClerc), a children’s book author, comes down to Cape Cod for one last Christmas dinner with her disagreeable siblings before they have to sell their family beach house - a family tradition while their parents were alive. She is heartbroken to have to sell and commissions a painting of the house as a keepsake from a local artist who’s gallery she’s always loved. It turns out the artist is her childhood sweetheart CHRISTIAN (Brent Bailey) with whom she had a puppy-love romance when they were 12 years old. He’s a painter of much greater renown than Margot realizes and together they devise a plan to keep the house she loves so dearly. According to Woods Hole Film Festival Executive Director Judy Laster, this year’s screening is also being greeted with enthusiasm and the special event screening is expected to sell out. Says Laster, “We are excited to host a screening of A Cape Cod Christmas again this year to bring people together for a fun evening as part of Falmouth’s Holidays By the Seas weekend. The film begins at 7 pm following Falmouth Chamber of Commerce’s caroling event in Waterfront Park at 5:30 pm. And, before the film folks from the MBL dining team will be on hand to sell coffee, hot chocolate and special treats. We hope this will continue to be an annual tradition." Tickets are $20 and are on sale in advance at www.woodsholefilmfestival.org. For more information contact the Woods Hole Film Festival at info@woodsholefilmfestival.org or call (508) 495-3456. The Festival is supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Woods Hole Foundation, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and the National Endowment of the Arts, the Falmouth Cultural Council, the Falmouth Fund of the Cape Cod Foundation, Martha’s Vineyard Bank Foundation, and Cape Cod 5 Bank.