Filmmaker follows campaign trail home

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An ex-Minnesotan's documentary on Howard Dean's presidential run will premiere at Twin Cities film festival.

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune

Last update: April 18, 2008 - 10:30 PM

Five years ago, Heath Eiden picked up his video camera to record the earliest days of his first child.

Then, as he put it, "our neighbor down the road decided he wanted to be president."

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was off and running, Eiden trailing along behind, his camera running.

And that was the starting point for "Dean and Me: Roadshow of an American Primary," Eiden's feature-length documentary that will have its premiere in a week during the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival.

The screening will be a homecoming of sorts for Eiden, 40, who grew up in the Twin Cities and got his first taste of politics during Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential bid.

"It looked like this outspoken Yankee was going to have a real shot and was going on a great adventure," Eiden said. "But win or lose, I wanted to show people how the campaign works."

From the start, it was simply a solo effort, as Eiden filmed campaign events, candidates and pundits as he criss-crossed Iowa and New Hampshire in 2003 and 2004.

He hovers around the edges of events, crossing paths with the likes of David Gergen, Tucker Carlson and Al Franken, a Dean supporter who famously tackled a heckler at a campaign event.

The film also features Ted Mondale, son of the former vice president. At one point, the film shows Mondale trudging door to door in Iowa, trying to persuade Iowans to caucus for Dean. "This pretty much sucks," he says as he works a Mason City neighborhood on a bitterly cold day.

Mondale, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Council, will introduce the movie at the premiere.

To finance the film, which cost more than $100,000, Eiden and his wife sold 16 acres of land near their home in Stowe.

"I wanted to show what it takes to battle to win the presidency, along with the battle of doing the film," he said. "So I decided to throw myself out there and allow myself to look like a buffoon."

His routes to Vermont and filmmaking were circuitous, having started learning the craft at Hopkins High School, attending college in Washington, D.C., and working in print and electronic journalism. Deciding big-city life wasn't conducive to raising a family, Eiden and his wife, Sandra, decided to put down roots in her native Vermont.

Although the bulk of the film concentrates on Dean's meteoric rise and even more precipitous fall, it concludes with him presiding over the Democratic National Committee on a triumphant election night two years ago.

The screening is a step toward trying to find a distributor and begin making back some of the money that he poured into the project, Eiden said.

"I'm tempted to get the show back on the road, maybe come to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention," he said.

"But my goal, to finish my first feature film before I was 40, worked out."

The film will be shown at 5:10 p.m. April 26 at the St. Anthony Main theaters in Minneapolis. Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184

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