Kirk Sillivan, a local filmmaker, stands in the Main Street display window of his Saranac Lake office for Bing Bang Boom Inc. with the camera his father Fred used to shoot his prominent Saranac Lake film “Sullivan’s Pavilion,” better known as “The Beer Drinker’s Guide To Fitness & Filmmaking,” released in 1987. It’s an ARRIFLEX camera which shoots on 16mm film. Kirk said this will not be the camera he uses to film a new short film for Historic Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

SARANAC LAKE — Historic Saranac Lake has been awarded $70,000 in state and federal grants to recuperate from the coronavirus pandemic, to support its ongoing “Pandemic Perspectives” exhibit and to produce a new film showing the history of the Saranac Lake region.

The money all comes from the federal American Rescue Plan stimulus package — $50,000 through the National Endowment for the Humanities and $20,000 through New York Humanities.

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Film

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A portion of the $50,000 NEH grant will go toward producing a new short film on the history of the Saranac Lake region to be shown to visitors at the museum.

HSL Executive Director Amy Catania described the Saranac Lake region as being the land inside the Saranac Lake Central School District, the largest, geographically, in the state.

The film will include a segment on the history of Indigenous peoples who lived here for thousands of years before white settlers arrived.

“In the past, we have failed to present this history in any meaningful way, and it’s time to make a change,” Catania said in a statement.

“I think there’s a lot of people who come through Saranac Lake and stop here to find out what happened,” she said in an interview. “To just present the history of the Saranac Lake region as if it started when the white settlers arrived is just not correct.”

Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center co-owner John Fadden will consult on this section of the film. Catania said it will be a starting point for learning about local indigenous history and she hopes people will go to the cultural center in Onchiota to learn more.

Catania said the film will be directed by local filmmaker Kirk Sullivan, who owns Bing Bang Boom Inc. on Main Street in Saranac Lake. Sullivan has directed feature films and worked on ad campaigns for Disney and President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. He’s done some short documentary work before, including for the Nature Conservancy.

Sullivan said he’s already working on a film about Edward Livingston Trudeau and was interested in working with HSL.

He said he’s still in the very early stages of development but anticipates he’ll film some new interviews and use HSL’s plethora of archival footage for b-roll.

Sullivan said he’s excited to work with Fadden, and to learn more about Indigenous people’s history.

“I agree with Amy that their story hasn’t been told as clearly or celebrated as much as it should, or been incorporated into our village’s history,” he said.

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Pandemic reflection and recovery

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Some of the $20,000 NYH grant will go toward online and in-person events for HSL’s “Pandemic Perspectives” exhibit. Panels for this exhibit were installed at the museum this summer and will be up through next year. The exhibit and its correlating events focus on pandemics, from tuberculosis to COVID-19.

Tuberculosis was already a big part of the museum’s stories, as the building it occupies was once the Saranac Laboratory, the first TB research facility in the country. It was built in 1894 by Edward Livingston Trudeau, who made Saranac Lake the base for his research on, and treatment of, the disease.

The NYH grant is also for the museum’s general operations after months of hardship caused by the virus.

“The humanities grants will underwrite expanded programs and support our general operations as we bounce back from the economic damage caused by the pandemic,” HSL board President Amy Jones wrote in a statement. “These grants will make it possible to continue to provide programs for local students, conduct oral histories, lead talks and tours, and plan events on the Cure Porch on Wheels, our mobile exhibit space.”

Catania said HSL was hit hard economically by the pandemic, as many other museums were. The museum was closed to the public, the gift shop was dark and fundraisers were cancelled. She said staff were cut back and many worked in part-time positions for months.

Still, she said, HSL fared better than others with the help of donations.

HSL opened the laboratory museum in 2009, and in 2019, purchased Trudeau’s home and medical office next door with plans to expand the museum.

“The Trudeau Building provides the space to tell a broader story beyond the story of tuberculosis, and to discuss the important history of TB more in-depth and in context,” Catania said in a statement.

The expansion project is estimated to cost $4.1 million. The funds from the American Rescue Plan will not be used toward this project, Catania said. She said the museum is doing its own fundraising and has raised $2.2 million thus far. She said the rehabilitation of the building is anticipated to go out to bid next year.