Filmmakers Steve Lerner and Reuben Aaronson didn’t create “Strangers In Town,” a documentary about Garden City, for film festivals.
Instead, they created it to get the message out about a small Kansas town that has accepted those that have traveled from around the world to live there.
While the film wasn’t made for a festival, that hasn’t stopped it from picking up two people’s choice awards.
The most recent award was handed out Jan. 20 at the Borrego Springs Film Festival. Additionally, the film received an audience favorite award in 2019 at the Film Festival at Brown’s Point.
“We made the film really to get this message out, and we screened it all over the country, but both of these film festivals that gave us awards. They were the award given by the vote of the viewers at the festival and that means a lot to me because that means the message of the film is resonating with people,” said Lerner, the film’s director of photography. “These weren’t awards made by film critics.”
(Read more: Leavenworth Times)