Boatbuilders' Review: A Mellow Maine Boatyard Study That Offers All the Quiet Rewards of Fine Craftsmanship in Action

“Boatbuilders” is a 16-month, ground-to-sea documentary that follows Luke Lorentzen as a Maine boatyard constructs a single 56-foot luxury sailing yacht named Kiandra. The film, described as calm and process-focused, highlights incremental craftsmanship—close-ups of scuffed, gnarled hands shaping and assembling the timber structure before the vessel’s final hunter-green finish. Set within Brooklin, Maine, the movie tracks the Brooklin Boat Yard, a small harbor town institution in a community of about 827 people. The review says the film is likely to find its audience at documentary-focused festivals and notes its North American premiere as the opening film of the Camden docfest in Maine.