MV man’s documentary to be shown at film festival

A 22-minute long documentary, “Oro Verde,” by Mount Vernon’s Matthew Brown, has been selected for the 4th Annual Central Wisconsin Film Festival.

The documentary outlines the arduous process of bringing organic coffee to market in a small coffee growing cooperative in northern Nicaragua. Nelson Gamez, a resident of Sontule, Nicaragua, who first approached Brown about the possibility of working on the project, narrates the documentary.

Brown’s life and travel partner, Kristy SeBlonka, did the Spanish translation for the documentary. Brown shot and edited the footage, collected during the couple’s travels in the Central American country last December.

 “Oro Verde,” which translates as “green gold,” a moniker sometimes used to refer to raw coffee beans, will be screened as part of a documentary block at the festival.

The festival appealed to the couple, not only because Brown grew up in the festival’s hometown of Stevens Point, Wisc., but because of a sister city connection between Stevens Point and Esteli, Nicaragua. Sontule, which is where most of the documentary was shot, lies in the Miraflor Nature Preserve just north of Esteli.

Brown and SeBlonka currently make their home in Mount Vernon. “Oro Verde” can be viewed online at: www.youtube.com/user/matthewbrown179.