KIDS’ TV STAR TO MAKE CAPE ANN HIS NEIGHBORHOOD FOR FINAL WEEKEND OF FILM FESTIVAL

After the screening, Newell, who is featured in the film and is Guest of Honor of the 2010 Cape Ann Film Festival, will lead a special "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" sing-along. The film's director, "St. Elmo's Fire" screenwriter and "Saved By The Bell" producer Carl Kurlander, will also participate in a Q&A after the screening.

As an additional special treat for Cape Ann moviegoers, Sunday Oct. 17 at 2:00pm at the Cape Ann Community Cinema (www.CapeAnnCinema.com) at 21 Main Street in Gloucester, the Festival will present "Speedy Delivery" (www.SpeedyDeliveryMovie.com), a heartwarming documentary focusing on the quest of actor David Newell (aka "Mr. McFeely" the delivery man from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood") to keep alive the legacy of Fred Rogers and "The Neighborhood." Newell will also appear at that screening and will conduct a "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" sing-along after the film.

The two-venue Cape Ann Film Festival opened on Friday, October 1st with a sold-out presentation of the local interest documentary "The Gloucester 18," and wraps on Sunday, October 17th at 5:00pm at Rockport Music Cinema with a presentation of the restoration of Fritz Lang's silent 1927 masterpiece, "Metropolis" with a live score by the renowned Cambridge trio, The Alloy Orchestra. Local cellist Kristen Miller will open the show with a new score for Maya Deren's experimental 1944 short, "At Land."

When "St. Elmo's Fire" screenwriter and "Saved By The Bell" producer Carl Kurlander left Los Angeles for what he thought would be a one-year Hollywood sabbatical to teach at the University of Pittsburgh, little did he think the journey would land him as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on a program about people who had changed their lives, much less inspire a feature documentary. But shortly after, Kurlander told Oprah how happy he and his wife were raising their daughter in Pittsburgh — the real-life "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" where Mister Rogers had produced his TV show for 40 years — Pittsburgh and America's favorite neighbor Fred Rogers passed away and the City of Pittsburgh went bankrupt. With both himself and his hometown in a mid-life crisis, Kurlander set out on a Don Quixote quest to make a film to help the city he had grown up in.

Armed with a cranky cameraman, funded by his dermatologist, and often battling his wife, who longs to return to the sunny West Coast, Carl asks his neighbors from the famous (Steeler Franco Harris, Teresa Heinz Kerry) to the not-so-famous (his old gym teacher, the girl who inspired St. Elmo's Fire) how this once great industrial giant, which built America with its steel, conquered polio, and invented everything from aluminum to the Big Mac, can reinvent itself for a new age. 

Kurlander goes cheese shopping with Teresa Heinz Kerry where they discuss her late husband John Heinz's belief that sometimes your worst problems can become your best opportunities; tosses a football with legendary Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris; visits with Andy Warhol's nephew at a local scrapyard, and goes fishing in Pittsburgh's once polluted rivers with his brother actor Tom Kurlander and, after eating a catfish, consults with famed coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht to find out if they will live. Along the way, the film documents one of the most inspiring urban comebacks in recent history as, during the course of filming, Pittsburgh went from the brink of bankruptcy to being named in 2010 "America's Most Livable City."

As comedian Louie Anderson jokes in the film, "My Tale Of Two Cities" is not a "Roger & Me," but a "Mister Rogers  & Me" — a feel-good movie which explores whether you can go home again and how all of us can make a difference in the communities in which we live. But in the end, this quirky, personal, and often funny, film may be most about what Oprah said to Kurlander when he was on her show — the search for a more "authentic life."

On March 23, 2010, "My Tale Of Two Cities" became the first movie ever to play Capitol Hill at the new U.S. Visitor's Center where many shared Congressman Mike Doyle's sentiment that this is "a comeback story that can inspire cities around the country." The film has gone on to play in theaters across North America including Windsor Ontario, Pittsburgh, Tempe, Harrisburg, New Haven, Cleveland, Boston, Portland and Louisville.

For more information and media inquiries or screeners, email Marketing Director Chelsea Strub at MyTaleOfTwoCities@gmail.com. "My Tale Of Two Cities" is distributed by Panorama Entertainment.   

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