Steamboat Couple Produces Mary Oliver Documentary for Wildhorse Theater Premiere

The Wildhorse theater lobby hums with the low murmur of neighbors grabbing popcorn and settling into their seats. John Weinkle sits near the front, adjusting his glasses as the projector light cuts through the dust motes. He’s not here for the spectacle. He’s here because a poem once pulled him out of a lonely period, and now that same verse is being projected onto a forty-foot screen. The air smells like old wood and fresh coffee.

The Steamboat Pilot reported Tuesday that the part everyone skips past is how a retired architect and his wife, Leah, turned that quiet moment into a feature-length documentary. “Wild Geese” was the first Mary Oliver poem John found when he was navigating his own version of isolation, and after reading it aloud at their wedding, the words stuck. He still gets a little verklempt when he hears them. Three years ago, John and Leah noticed the best-selling poet in America had no documentary to her name. They drafted an outline, pitched it to the executive producer of PBS’s “American Masters,” and got a quick yes.

John, who spent the 1980s chasing failed television pilots, never lost the itch. Leah, a retired business executive, had never held a camera or called “cut,” yet they took on the project as executive producers. They didn’t run the daily shoot; they reviewed rough cuts, weighed in on musical choices, and trusted director Sasha Waters — hired by local outfit Pie Shake Pictures — to handle the heavy lifting. “It was a little bit of a miracle,” John said, watching the opening credits roll. “Because first-time filmmakers usually can’t get to filmmakers. So this went from idea to reality very linearly and quickly.” The part everyone skips past is how they managed that collaboration without micromanaging every frame.

And that matters because the film isn’t staying in festival circuits. It premiered at True Falls in Columbia, Missouri, in March, then moved through Boulder and Miami, where it took home best documentary. A distributor picked it up for theaters, and now “Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World” is showing one thousand times across forty cities. John called that rollout another miracle, noting how most documentaries fade into streaming obscurity after their festival run. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have already weighed in, but locals around here get to see it first on July 22. Folks who know what it costs to keep a small theater running appreciate the steady stream of tickets.

Not exactly a blockbuster rollout, but it’s working. Leah put it simply: “The fact that we had no prior experience and that we manifested this really critically acclaimed film is just sort of encouragement to live your dreams.” The creative spark, John added, came down to a single question: what if? Stand there long enough and you’ll hear the audience shift in their seats as Oliver’s words fill the room. The projector clicks off. The lobby lights come up. Neighbors start chatting about poetry, weekend plans, and whether they’ll catch the next screening before the summer crowds arrive.