Film About Rye Boy Lost in the Maine Woods

In 2009, MyRye reported on the story of Donn Fendler, a 12-year-old boy from Rye who survived nine days in the Maine wilderness as a child in 1939. Fendler later published Lost on a Mountain in Maine, which described his experience in the Maine woods on Mt. Katahdin. This fall, a film adaptation of Fendler’s book will hit theaters. MyRye talked to filmmaker Ryan Cook about his upcoming movie.

MyRye: Are there plans to distribute Lost on a Mountain in Maine for a wider audience?

Cook: “It will be in theaters in the fall. We have a premiere that’s happening in Maine as part of the Maine International Film Festival, that’s happening on July 13, and we’re doing a premiere and a celebration of the movie. Then it will play in theaters nationwide in the fall.”

How did you decide to make a movie about Donn Fendler?

“I was a fourth grader growing up in Maine, and in Maine, the book [Lost on a Mountain in Maine] is required reading for every fourth grader in the public school system, as part of our Maine studies. And it’s an iconic story in our state; my parents read the book to me when I was 10 years old. It’s probably one of Maine’s most famous stories. So I’ve known the story since I was a little kid, and then in fourth grade, when we read the book, Donn Fendler came to our class. He would travel around the state and go to different classrooms and libraries and speaking events and just talk to people about the book and the story. And for me, that was a really life-changing experience. He became a hero of mine. 

So from a young age I loved the story and I looked up to Donn, so when I graduated from film school, I was sort of like, ‘This is a project I want to take on.’ And it was complicated––book rights and life rights, navigating those waters, and raising the money and finding the right creative team to partner up with. It was a long journey. My producing partner Derek and I started in 2010 going up to Donn’s summer house in Maine and we would meet with him and work on the project, just one step at a time. It took us 14 years, but we finally got the movie made.”

What was the process of putting the movie together? How much does the script draw from real life, and how much is fictionalized? 

“We used the book as a guide, but […] we formed a really close relationship with Donn, and so we were able to glean other details from his journey and what he remembers. Also, the book really touches on Donn’s journey, but there was so much more than happened in the outside world: the search and rescue team, and his family, what they were going through. We feel like we’ve made a movie that is also going to tell that side of the story. At the end of the day, we’ve made a movie about family. The bond between a son and his mom and dad, their efforts to find him, and his efforts to get back to them. And all of that information came from spending time with Donn and hearing him talk about his relationship to his parents, and his two brothers and sister. He had a twin brother, Ryan Fendler, who was with him on the hike––that’s a pretty tight bond. We feel like we’ve been as true to the story as we possibly can because we believe that the story is powerful as is, but we’re excited to include some other elements that maybe people don’t know about.”

Did you talk to anyone currently or formerly connected to Rye while researching the movie?

“Donn’s brother Tom Fendler still lives in Rye to this day. […] I came down to Rye to show him the movie recently, which was a really great and special experience. There’s actually a lot of Rye connections. Two of our producers are also from Rye. Dick Boyce, one of our head producers, is not from Rye, but he lived there for a long time. […] He had a Rye connection and he lived there for a while. Our other producer, Heather Grehan, grew up in Rye, just coincidentally. She had no connection to the story ahead of time, but Sylvester Salone’s company Balboa Productions is a producer on the movie, and she works for Balboa. So when we approached them to make the movie, it was just coincidentally like, ‘Oh, I grew up in Rye.’ And her mom still lives there. It’s a weird small world. Through three different threads––between the Fendlers, between the Boyce family, and between Heather Grehan––there’s a deep Rye connection.

Do you know how the City of Rye reacted to Donn Fendler’s disappearance at the time?

“I don’t have any specifics, but my thought is that they were similar to the rest of the country. This became a national news story. This story went viral in a time when things didn’t go viral. My thought is that they felt the way the rest of the country did: every night listening to the radio and looking at the papers, hoping to learn that this young man has made it back to his family. Especially from [Donn’s] hometown. A lot of people knew his family there. They wanted to see him come home. And toward the end of it, things didn’t look great. He was out there for nine days. That’s a long time to hold out hope, so for him to come home and come back to Rye was a pretty special thing.”

Thanks Ryan!

Lost in a Mountain in Maine will be premiere at the Main International Film Festival (MIFF) this summer. Festival pass-holders can purchase tickets to the premiere at MIFF.ORG now, or individual tickets will be available for purchase on July 14th. The film will be released in theaters this fall.