Norah Shapiro and Kelly Nathe had a couple of urgent reasons to finish their documentary "MN 13: From Grain to Glass," about Stearns County's colorful history of producing moonshine during Prohibition.
One was the quick turnaround required by a Legacy Fund grant they received. The other was that their primary source and co-producer, St. Cloud professor and author Elaine Davis, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and they wanted her to see it before she died last July.
"In her obituary, she asked for donations to the film, which wound up giving us what we needed to finish it," Nathe said. "But it was very emotional, so we had to let it sit for a few months before starting postproduction."
The film is one of 11 documentaries in the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival's Minnesota-made competition. The fest also includes four narrative features, several shorts and music videos shot and/or produced in the state.
Nathe, whose family hails from Stearns County, recalls seeing a newspaper clipping as a child about her grandfather getting arrested for illegally distilling booze that was made from locally grown grain and widely distributed by Al Capone. "But nobody would ever talk about it," she said. At a museum in Holdingford, "someone cut out all the moonshine-related arrest stories from the archived newspapers of the '20s and early '30s, most likely because of the shame associated with the arrests."
The film screens at 7:30 p.m. April 16 and 1:45 p.m. April 17 at St. Anthony Main. Other anticipated entries with Minnesota connections:
• "A Stray," directed by Musa Syeed, spotlights the Somali subculture of the Cedar/Riverside neighborhood through the story of a young man and his dog. (7:20 p.m. April 15 and 3:50 p.m. April 17, St. Anthony Main)
• "The Legend of Swee' Pea," Benjamin May's doc about troubled basketball great Lloyd Daniels, recently premiered at South by Southwest. (7:10 p.m. Fri. and 4:30 p.m. April 14, St. Anthony Main)
