MIDCOAST—Canoe Dig It, a new mockumentary by Portland native Samuel Dunning, will be paddling its way through Maine this spring and summer.

The synopsis describes it as, "a mockumentary comedy about a fictional canoeing competition in Northern Maine for the nonfictional sport of 'Freestyle Canoeing,' a form of performative canoeing best described as 'canoe dancing.'"

The film tracks a handful of quirky and curiously relatable competitors vying for the blue ribbon at the Moosehead Regional Finals. The story follows a diverse group of canoeists, including a cutthroat perfectionist, a backwoods natural, an aging underdog, a squabbling couple of summer camp owners, and a hard-rocking bartender, as they prepare to do whatever it takes to make it to the top of the Freestyling world.

Dunning wrote the screenplay during the COVID-19 pandemic and starred as Leonard Hoskins, the highly competitive and pompous main character. If you're a fan of Christopher Guest movies such as "Best In Show," you'll immediately recognize the ensemble cast of characters as likeably unselfaware and relatable as each competitor travels to a national Freestyle Canoeing competition in Maine.

"The stakes in this movie are incredibly low," said Dunning. "I wanted this to be a warm bath of a movie where you could leave the room and come back for your favorite parts."

Dunning, who graduated from New York University with a degree in directing wanted his first debut feature to be, "a love letter to the state of Maine and canoeing culture," and, naturally, had to film it in his home state.

The micro-budget indie film shoot took place primarily in the town of Poland in Summer 2023, based out Camp Agassiz Village, on 330 acres connected to Thompson Lake. The shoot took three weeks in May, wrapping up mid-June, just before the campers were due to arrive.

"It served as a great home base, and we saved money by putting up everyone in the cabins," he said.

The cast, a mix of friends and casting finds, portrays an ensemble of characters with familiar eccentricities. There are two outdoorsy gun-toting Maine backwoods guys, Booger and Hersh, and the clueless "from away" summer people couple, the LeBrascas, which audiences really responded to, Dunning said.

"They're just so white, even mayonnaise is spicy," he added.

"It's funny when I was writing it, I thought I was writing too many Maine archetypes, but then I handed the script off to the actors, and they really made the characters their own," he said. "It's this earnestness of people not aware of how they are self-presenting. It's more fun that way."

The film premiered at Cinequest Film Festival in March 2025 and toured the country at a variety of festivals, including the Maine Outdoor Film Festival, where it won Best Maine Film.

Watching the movie on the screen surrounded by his friends, the cast, and producers, was a lot of fun.

"I tried to make this movie so painfully dry that there are moments where not everyone is aware a joke just happened, or so hyper-specific that only a couple of people would get it. So, in the audience, where everyone is silent, and the one person off to the side goes 'HA!' I was thinking, 'There it is—there's the one person I wrote that scene for.'"

For more information about the film, see the attached pdf. View the trailer.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com