Wellstone Documentary To Open In Minnesota

[myrna minx]

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_267073222.html
Sep 23, 2004 6:29 am US/Central
WASHINGTON (AP) A new documentary on the late Sen. Paul Wellstone offers this surprising fact about the proud Minnesotan: he didn't want to move to Minnesota.

After Carleton College offered the 25-year-old Wellstone a teaching job, the North Carolina resident was trying to find reasons not to accept, recalls friend Jim Stimson.

"He didn't want to live in Minnesota," says a laughing Stimson, after hesitating about whether to offer this information for public consumption.

But in the documentary, "Wellstone!," the future Democratic senator is shown throwing himself into Minnesota full-bore, from organizing on behalf of farmers and workers, to his 12 years in the United States Senate.

The 88-minute documentary will premiere Oct. 14 at the Heights Theater in Minneapolis as part of the Central Standard Film Festival. It was originally to be called "Carry it Forward," put producers decided to change the name to avoid confusion with the movie "Pay it Forward."

The film was produced by Hard Working Pictures, a St. Paul, Minn., production company at a cost of around $350,000. It covers the lives of Wellstone and his wife Sheila from the time they met in high school.