VT filmmaker, who has worked with Michael J. Fox and Treat Williams, wins $10K prize

Vermont filmmaker and arts presenter Jay Craven was bestowed Saturday with the 10th annual Herb Lockwood Prize in the Arts, an honor given by Burlington City Arts that carries with it an award of $10,000.

Craven is best known for his independent films that despite modest budgets have attracted well-known actors to perform in them. His works include “Where the Rivers Flow North” (1993) starring Michael J. Fox, Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal and Treat Williams; “A Stranger in the Kingdom" (1997) featuring Martin Sheen and Ernie Hudson; “Disappearances” (2006) with Kris Kristofferson, Genevieve Bujold and Luis Guzman; and “Northern Borders” (2012) starring Bruce Dern, Jessica Hecht and Bujold.

All of those films, created through his company Kingdom County Productions, were based on novels by the late Vermont author Howard Frank Mosher, himself a Lockwood Prize winner in 2017. Other winners include filmmaker Nora Jacobson (2016), puppeteer and artist Peter Schumann (2018), choreographer Hannah Dennison (2020) and jazz musician Ray Vega (2021).

Herb Lockwood was a multi-genre artist who died in a 1987 workplace accident in Burlington at age 27. His brother, Todd R. Lockwood, and a group of friends founded the Herb Lockwood Prize in 2014.

Craven, who lives in Barnet, created the St. Johnsbury-based organization Catamount Arts in 1975 and was also in on the ground floor of the youth-centered troupe Circus Smirkus. He has made 21 movies filmed in New England and primarily in Vermont. His next film, “Lost Nation,” will tell parallel Vermont-based stories of Revolutionary War figure Ethan Allen and poet Lucy Terry Prince, regarded by many as the creator of the first work of African-American literature.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven wins Burlington City Arts prize