When the movie Big Eden was released 15 years it instantly became a gay cult classic. Thomas Bezucha's debut feature film is an decidedly heart-warming old fashioned romance and real feel-good crowd pleaser which picked up nine awards from leading Film Festivals around the country. The San Francisco Chronicle explained its appeal so succinctly 'Seeing middle-aged, regular fellas get so worked up over each other is a treat'.
Bezuka's story is about Henry a highly successful artist in New York who suddenly has to up and return to his small hometown nestled in the mountains of Montana to look after his sick grandfather who had brought him up. Back in his roots he starts to re-evaluate his life and although he still has issues with his sexuality (he has still yet to tell his Grandfather) the whole neighborhood have no hesitation in not only accepting him for who he is, but they go out of their way to encourage Henry's potential romance with the hunk native Indian who is silently wooing him.
With such a delightful script in his hand Bezucha managed to cast a bevy of really talented actors starting with Oscar Winner Louise Fletcher, Arye Gross (Adam Green in 'Ellen'), Eric Schweig ('The Last Of The Mohican'), Tim DeKay ('Party of Five'), George Coe ('Kramer vs Kramer') and Nan Martin (Mrs Louder in The Drew Carey Show) which was no mean achievement for a newbie director. It paid off dividends and made it one of the most successful LGBT movies released that year.
It certainly is one that sits in everyone's memories so the people at Wolfe Video had this bright of bringing out a special 15th Anniversary Edition, complete with a lot of DVD extras. It will be available October 15th, but meanwhile take a sneak preview of what got us all hot under the collar all those years ago.
We thought this re-release would be the perfect time to catch up and talk to Thomas Bezucha for Provincetown TV to ask him how he came to dream up this fairy tale, or see if in fact he had been Henry himself in real life.
