From Nov. 7 to Nov. 10, the Dartmouth Film Society celebrated the 75th Alumni Fest — an event that honors the Society’s 75th anniversary by bringing alumni in the film industry to campus. According to Johanna Evans, four out of the six films screened are brand new.
The celebration kicked off with a screening and post-film discussion of “The Nutcracker at Wethersfield,” a documentary directed by Annie Sundberg ’90. Presented in Loew Auditorium, the film shows the creation and premiere of a unique COVID-19-era adaptation of “The Nutcracker.” The showcase, directed and choreographed by New York City Ballet soloist Troy Schumacher, was performed at Wethersfield Estate in Amenia, N.Y.
According to Hopkins Center for the Arts senior program manager and film and media head Johanna Evans, the documentary was selected to “kick off the festival” in part due to its “provocative prompt,” which entailed “look[ing] at what it means to be an artist.”
“I was really taken with the initial visuals that Annie [Sundberg] sent — a lot of really stunning photographs of these dancers in different areas of the estate where they were staging ‘The Nutcracker,’” Evans added. “[The film] was something that looked visually joyful, even though the topic of the film is that these artists go to a retreat where they have to unlock their full artistic potential or give up art forever.”
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic halted live performances across the nation — including annual performances of “The Nutcracker” presented by one of the nation’s leading ballet companies, the New York City Ballet. Yet, in October 2020, Schumacher devised a plan to bring “The Nutcracker” to live audiences amid COVID-19 restrictions. He recruited 20 dancers from the New York City Ballet for a novel production of “The Nutcracker” at Wethersfield.
The production was the result of extensive efforts by Schumacher, his wife and co-director Ashley Laracey and creator director Elizabeth Mayhew. Twenty-three dancers, 20 of whom were from New York City Ballet.
Sundberg recalled a “laundry list” of New York’s “weird rules” surrounding COVID-19 that the group had to follow to prevent being shut down. Rules included not being “able to sell a ticket” and requiring a “certain amount of square foot around every person when they were inside [the mansion],” Sundberg said. The cast and crew also had to quarantine for four weeks before moving to Wethersfield, where they lived and spent the next five weeks rehearsing for the production. By Dec. 22, 2020, the makeshift company had held 19 performances for around 16 to 18 masked guests per performance, according to the closing scene of the film.
Sundberg described the experience as both “really moving,” despite the filming process being “really not an easy time.” These factors create the theme of the film that Sunberg “thinks will carry forward” into the final adaptation.
“It’s a film of resistance — of saying we see a world that we want to live in, and we’re going to make it happen,” Sundberg said. “There was something very profoundly moving being part of this process when we made the film.”
Sundberg said she first learned of Schumacher’s plans in October 2020 from a friend who assisted Schumaker in finding someone to film the production. Sundberg was urged to take on the project — the first live production since the start of the pandemic.
“[My friend] said, ‘You need to film this before it happens. It’s going to be magic,’” Sundberg said.
Sundberg ultimately decided to take on the project, despite several challenges — from the dancers’ nerves about working with the film crew due to increased risk of infection to difficulties securing funding for the film. She ultimately funded the film herself with profits from previous projects, Sundberg said.
“Dance is like the forgotten child in the art world,” she explained. “So when you make a film like this, these are not the films that are easy to get funding for. I worked on other projects, and then I threw my money into this one.”
While the film will be released in “select” theaters at an upcoming date that has yet to be announced, it ended up at Dartmouth following a run-in with senior vice president for university advancement Robert Lasher ’88 at a fundraising campaign for the Hopkins Center in New York City, Sundberg said. At the event, Sundberg told Lasher about the film, she explained. He then requested to see trailers and a portion of the piece.
Sundberg said she thinks the ongoing Hopkins Center renovation — slated to finish in the fall of 2025 — sparked Lasher’s interest in a “film about dance” because the College is currently undergoing a reemphasis on the arts.
“[The film] also really celebrates the role and power of art in our culture,” Sundberg said. “And I think that was a great time for [Lasher] [because] that was when he was thinking about what is happening here at Dartmouth — this idea of a potential new focus on arts education.”
Approximately 20 to 30 people attended the screening and post-film discussion, during which Sundberg explained that the film was made at a time when there was uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.
“It was a little bit [like] the feeling of playing violin on the Titanic as it’s going down, because there was no vaccine,” she said. “There was no sense of when the pandemic was going to end. So it really did feel like doing the impossible, and that was both exciting and daunting and exhilarating.”
Evans said the festival’s opening was “exclusive and special” because the film is a “new work” that is “not 100% in the can.” The credits are currently unfinished, for instance, she explained.
“[‘The Nutcracker at Wethersfield’ is] a little further along than a work-in-progress screening, but it is still being submitted to festivals,” Evans said.
Stephanie Sowa ’25, who attended the screening, described the documentary as “beautiful.”
“I thought it … perfectly balanced the stress of putting together a performance during the pandemic and the power of art through dance,” Sowa said. “I can’t wait to watch it again.”
Hopkins Center fellow Victoria Tan ’27 said the film festival generally provided “good exposure” to students interested in film & media studies because it demonstrated the intricacies and labor that go into film production.
“Having a look at this first draft, seeing the thought process and then with the discussion — you get to see how things are going to change,” Tan said. “[It] is like trying to figure out how all the footage you have fits together.”
While films screened at the Hopkins Center typically attract an audience split between students and Upper Valley community members, Evans said the Hopkins Center has been marketing the Alumni Film Fest “much more aggressively to students” in order to inspire aspiring artists.
“One of our biggest hopes is that students will meet the alums and be inspired to pursue careers in the arts themselves,” Evans said.
Stephanie Sowa ’25 is a former sports editor at The Dartmouth. She was not involved in the writing or production of this article.
