Jay Craven follows Where the Rivers Flow North with A Stranger in the Kingdom, a second Vermont-set adaptation of a Howard Frank Mosher novel, this time starring Ernie Hudson, Martin Sheen, Sean Nelson and Carrie Snodgress.

Stranger takes on race conflicts in a sleepy Vermont town during the summer of 1952 when a former U.S. Army chaplain (Hudson) becomes the town's first black pastor and arrives with his teenage son (Fresh star Sean Nelson). The new pastor's a widower, and when a young French-Canadian woman recently arrived in the town is found murdered and mutilated, he's charged with the crime and the edgy peace is shattered.

"It's a character-rich story steeped in time and place about a community of hardscrabble characters whose good guys are not all good and bad guys not all bad," says Craven. "What appealed to me was the opportunity to render them with the intimate specificity that grows from being there."

Craven has been based in small town Vermont for more than 20 years and is a leading figure on the regional arts front. He made a half-dozen docs and shorts before venturing into feature territory with Rivers in 1994. Rivers played 11 festivals including Sundance and Seattle and sold to 39 foreign countries. When no domestic distributor stepped up to the plate, Craven self-distributed the film to 212 U.S. cities over 51 weeks, grossing close to $4 million on the strength of generally sterling reviews and a $175,000 P&A fund fronted by video distributor Unapix, which ultimately shipped 45,000 tapes (about two thirds rental, one third sell-through). That hat trick won Craven the Producers Guild of America's 1995 NOVA Award for Most Promising Theatrical Motion Picture Producer of the Year. It also helped a lot in raising Stranger's seven-figure financing, which included a hefty six-figure bank loan and shares in a limited partnership. Craven says he attracted Martin Sheen through the efforts of executive producer Matt Salinger, a New Hampshire native then making a transition from acting to producing.

Stranger shot in central Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom's Essex County courthouse in Guild Hall for 32 days last October and November, with Craven importing much of his key crew from New York. Craven anticipates a finished film in June; and all rights are available.

Cast: Ernie Hudson, David Lansbury, Bill Raymond, Martin Sheen, Jean Louisa Kelly, Sean Nelson, Carrie Snodgress, Tantoo Cardinal, Henry Gibson. Crew: Producer/Director, Jay Craven; Screenwriters, Craven, Don Bredes; Executive Producer, Matt Salinger; Director of Photography, Philip Holahan; Production Designer, Stephanie Kerley Schwartz; Editor, Liz Schwartz; Music by The Horse Flies. Contact: Jay Craven, Whiskeyjack Pictures Ltd., Church Street, Barnet, Vermont 05821. Tel: (802) 633-2306, Fax (802) 633-3831.

Animals - Michael Di Jiacomo
Highball - Noah Baumbach
Life During Wartime - Evan Dunsky
Long Time Since - Jay Anania
Montana - Jennifer Leitzes
Portrait-in-Progress - Marion Cajori
Some Prefer Cake - Heidi Arnesen
Sparkler - Darren Stein
A Stranger in the Kingdom - Jay Craven
Sue - Amos Kollek