Documentary about Brooklin Boat Yard to be screened at Venice Film Festival

Film about ‘community, its craftspeople, and how they depend on each other’ also has some ‘tough moments’

Brooklin Boat Yard employees building the sloop Kiandra. Courtesy of Hedgehog Films.

Aug. 25, 2026

By Steele Hays

Boatbuilders, a feature-length film that documents the work and daily lives of a handful of Brooklin Boat Yard employees, will have its world premiere Sept. 7 at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival. Ten days later, it will have its U.S. premiere at the Camden Film Festival. 

More than 4,000 films were nominated for entry in this year’s Venice festival, so being selected “is a huge, huge honor,” film director Luke Lorentzen said in an interview with The Rising Tide.

Lorentzen spent 15 months living and working in Brooklin during 2024 and 2025 while filming and editing the film. For most of that time, he stayed in a small apartment above the garage of a Brooklin Boat Yard employee.

“I made lifelong friends with the people on the crew, and I really connected with the community,” Lorentzen said. “I plan to spend a lot of time there in the future.”

This is Lorentzen’s third film, and he said he feels it’s his best.

The idea for the film emerged gradually. He had just completed work on his second film, A Still Small Voice, which focused on the work of a chaplain serving hospice care patients in New York’s Mount Sinai hospital. 

“I was looking for something that would be delightful and life-affirming, something that would be a real joy to film. I have spent a lot of time in Maine, and I knew about Brooklin Boat Yard,” Lorentzen said.

The boatyard had built two custom boats for his father, the filmmaker said. His father called the yard’s president, Brian Larkin, who agreed to have Luke come spend several days observing their work. After a week, Lorentzen asked Larkin if he could shoot a film there, documenting the construction of a 56-foot custom sloop named Kiandra. Larkin agreed, and Lorentzen began filming. 

“I went into it wondering how simple the story could be and still be something engaging,” Lorentzen said. “A lot of things unfolded through the course of the film – a baby was born and other things. I was editing as I went, and the story would tell itself, so to speak.”

Larkin said the end result is a film that is “more than a story about boats.”

"Brooklin is a small town that is full of people who build things with their hands – it’s an essential part of our history – but it’s hard to understand from the outside,” Larkin said in a written statement about the film. “Luke managed to capture more than a story about boats. This is a story about a community, its craftspeople, and how they depend on each other.” 

In an interview, Larkin spoke about the filmmaking process, saying that he had worn a microphone “for the better part of a year,” while going about his daily work. “After a while, I forgot about it,” he said.

Larkin said the film “shows some tough moments” at the boatyard, such as a discussion about whether or not an employee should be laid off. 

“It shows the everyday stuff that goes on around here,” Larkin said. “It shows that somebody can come in here and they all get treated the same. I have seen a rough cut of the film. I was nervous to watch it, but we all liked it. I’m probably going to really like it in a few years when I can look back and see it.” 

Larkin and Trent Glisson, a boatyard carpenter documented in the film, have been invited to attend the world premiere screening in Venice as guests of the production company, Hedgehog Films.

Boatbuilders will be screened in the Open Section of the Venice Festival, which is designed to highlight significant or innovative films that may not be in the official competition but still hold artistic merit.

The film’s selection is just the latest of a number of professional honors for Lorentzen, a 2015 Stanford University graduate. He won an Emmy Award for his work as director of the Netflix series Last Chance U, and his second film, A Still Small Voice, won him the “Best Documentary Director Award” at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Lorentzen said Brooklin area residents and boatyard employees will have a chance to see the film at a local screening in the next month or two. 

Additional information about the film is available on their website. 

The film Boatbuilders “shows the everyday stuff that goes on around here,” said Brian Larkin, head of Brooklin Boat Yard. Film clip courtesy of Hedgehog Films.