Lost Nation

7:00PM Discussion & Film | Post-Screening Q&A with Director, Jay Craven

2025, Kingdom County Productions. Director: Jay Craven. Cast: Kevin Ryan, Eva Ndachi, Rob Campbell, Barry Del Sherman, Karma Bridges, Rusty DeWees, Ariel Zevon

Lost Nation is a Revolutionary War-era action drama set in the early upstart Republic of Vermont. The picture features Vermont founding father and rebel schemer, Ethan Allen, who leads resistance to New Yorker land claims, launches an ill-fated attack on British forces in Montreal, and leads invasions by his Green Mountain Boys into Yorker strongholds of Guilford and Brattleboro.

Lost Nation’s parallel and intersecting story features a pioneering poet, Lucy Terry Prince, who was enslaved at the age of 3 in western Massachusetts – and settled a Guilford, Vermont homestead with her family during this same time. Like Ethan Allen, the Princes found themselves caught up in turbulent times that threatened their prospects for the land and freedom they sought. Like Allen, Lucy Prince upset the status quo in her assertive use of early Vermont’s legal and political systems to defend her family from encroachment, harassment, and intimidation.

About Jay Craven:

Kingdom County Productions co-founder, Jay Craven, is an award-winning director, writer, and producer, whose narrative films include High Water (1989); Where the Rivers Flow North (1993); A Stranger in the Kingdom (1997); In Jest (1999); The Year that Trembled (2003); Disappearances (2006); Northern Borders (2012); Wetware (2018); and Blood Brothers (2021), and Martin Eden (2023).

Craven founded and directed Catamount Arts (1975-91) in St. Johnsbury and directed its wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary film and performing arts program. In 1987 he co-founded (with Rob Mermin) Circus Smirkus, America’s only touring youth circus. And from 1979 to 1991 he co-produced Don Sunseri’s G.R.A.C.E. project for older indigenous visual artists.