A River Diary and Anne Frank

It's a worthy documentary topic: the pollution of U.S. rivers and the recent efforts of the Save Maumee Grassroots Organization, a group that canoed from Fort Wayne to Toledo, Indiana to highlight the battle to keep the Maumee River clean. But how do you draw people in?

A clever title helps, and in that department, director Terry Doran has come up with a clear winner. The name of his 30-minute documentary, which premiered April 20th at Indiana Tech Law School, is Anne Frank and the River Traveler.

From a recent article in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel:

The film's title comes from one of the river travelers, who, during their overnight stop at Grand Rapids, Ohio, told Doran the story of his experience at a Catholic military boarding school on the edge of town.

He was sent there by his parents for his eighth-grade year in hopes the school would make him more enthusiastic about his Catholic faith, Doran said. The man said he hated it.

"The two things that inspired him to make it through: He read Anne Frank's diary. He was (age) 13, and she was 13 when she started writing her diary," Doran said. "And going down and looking over the Maumee River."

Doran followed along in 2014, together with five videographers, as a group traveled 141 miles over nine days. The aforementioned traveler inspired by Frank is named Bill White and is the focus of the documentary.

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