Lonegan, who is legally blind, is challenged by Fred Pesce, a low-energy Democrat, and Dave Musikant, a big-hearted, former football player who lost his sight because of a brain tumor and is running as an independent write-in candidate.
"It’s a microcosm of the national political scene,’’ said director Kristian Fraga, who spent 18 months making "Anytown USA.’’ The film was finished the night before it was flown to Minnesota for its first showing at the festival, where it won the emerging filmmakers best documentary award.
"We hope when people see it, they’ll pay attention to the importance of voting, they’ll say, ‘Maybe my vote matters, maybe I should pay attention and I should get involved,’’’ said Fraga, who grew up in Bergen County.
This is the first feature-length documentary by Manhattan-based Sirk Productions, which includes Fraga and producer John Sikes and executive director Mark Perez, all from Bergen County, as is another producer, Juan Dominguez. Fraga said intense political discussions at work sparked the filmmakers’ interest in making a documentary about the political process. Twenty-four hours later, they got wind of a peculiar race unfolding in Bogota.
"We wanted to take over those conversations we were having and make a picture to show the different facets of what goes into a campaign,’’ said Fraga. "The idea was to stay with an overview of the political system, an overview of the small town and to make a movie people would talk about.’’
Besides being the only known local race in the country featuring two legally blind candidates, the Bogota mayor’s race had other peculiarities. Lonegan is a controversial figurehead, for one, with plenty of detractors stemming from his stance on the school funding issue. And, a late-entry into the race was Doug Friedline, who helped Jesse "The Body’’ Ventura win the Minnesota governor’s race, and signed on to help Musikant with his write-in campaign.
"I thought it was terrific,’’ said Lonegan, who said he watched the film on a small screen Wednesday night and planned to view it on a large screen Sunday at the State Museum. "It was really fun. It caught the essence of a local campaign. What it didn’t show was that Dave, Fred and I were friendly with each other.’’
In the documentary, Lonegan at times comes off strong-willed and mean-spirited, especially in a scene that shows him on the telephone, belittling Musikant’s sight loss.
"I don’t want to come across as being mean,’’ Lonegan said Friday, "but I run a strong campaign.
"They want to be able to sell the movie, so it’s better to show people beating me up than any of my supporters, which I have plenty of.’’
Fraga said filmmakers sifted through 300 hours of footage in an attempt to tell the story of the election without editorializing.
"We wanted to let the story tell itself,’’ said Fraga.
Lonegan said the film is unlikely to affect his chances in the Republican primary, where he trails front-runners Doug Forrester and Bret Schundler by as much as 30 percentage points, according to recent polls. Nor will it directly help his campaign coffers.
"Unfortunately, I don’t get any royalties,’’ he said.
