PEABODY — When Matt Aaron Krinsky left the North Shore 25 years ago to chase his dreams of being a director and producer in Hollywood, he never anticipated that his ambitions would lead him back home.
Ten years ago, Krinsky was in awe of a play that a friend of his, Julianne Homokay, wrote called “All Saints in the Old Colony.” Her play was set in the Old Colony apartments in South Boston, and Krinsky felt that because the play had great characters and only one location, it would really “lend itself to a smaller-budget indie film.”
“I tell people, ‘I wanted to make a studio-quality film, but with an indie budget and an indie mentality.’ I think our creativity and the heart of everybody involved really comes through,” Krinsky said.
Homokay, per Krinsky’s request, adapted her work into a screenplay, and Krinsky’s debut feature film “All Saints Day” will be available to rent and buy on Dec. 2. There is also a world premiere for the film on Nov. 22 in Salem, but that is already sold out.
The 99-minute film is described as a dark comedy and family drama where “to stop his oldest brother from drinking himself to death, Ronan enlists the help of their estranged priest brother and long-lost sister, sparking a chaotic family reunion, a botched intervention, and an unexpected journey into forgiveness and reckoning.”
Krinsky noted that it “took a few years to get situated,” but he and his team shot the film in 2022 on the North Shore in Chelsea, Lynn, and Peabody. He said it was “wild” coming back to the North Shore “in a very different context.”
“I grew up there and learned to drive there and went to high school there, and then I’m there in a very different capacity like scouting locations and casting. It was just kind of wild and like world-colliding,” Krinsky said.
Krinsky is a Peabody native and graduated from Peabody High in ‘96, but his mother is from Chelsea, and his family roots remain there. In fact, “All Saints Day” was filmed in a triplex that has been in his family since the 1920s. Krinsky added that his nieces and nephews have cameos in the film, and his family and friends were on set as extras.
“We have super deep roots in Chelsea, which made it extra special,” Krinsky said. “In fact, the play that the script was based on was set in South Boston based on the writer’s experience. But when we were adapting it into a screenplay, we decided to transition it to Chelsea both to make it more personal to me, as the director and producer, but also we felt like there’s a ton of stories that are set in Chelsea, so there’s also a lot of shooting that takes place in Chelsea.”
He continued, “Chelsea substitutes for South Boston. I don’t think there’s been a story actually set in Chelsea, so we were really excited to actually shoot there and set it there because it’s such a unique community with its own character.”
Krinsky emphasized that the film, although it was primarily shot in Chelsea, does have an impactful Peabody connection.
“I don’t think we show the exterior of the bar, but we shot in Peabody at the Roadhouse (Pub), which was kind of funny because the star is Don Swayze, and his brother Patrick was in ‘Road House.’ It was just kind of weird that the bar we got access to shoot in was called Roadhouse,” he said.
In addition to the star power that comes from Don Swayze, Krinsky also noted that there is a cameo from “New England comic legend” Lenny Clarke. He also made sure to note that Homokay, Co-producer Nicole Pascarelli O’Brien, and Director of Photography Sam Krueger, among many, were integral to the film’s success.
Since he’s Jewish, Krinsky explained with a chuckle that he did plenty of research into Catholicism to ensure the film was authentic.
“It’s not a religious film; it’s a film of siblings and family,” Krinsky said. “… We came up with ‘All Saints Day’ because, on top of the brother being a priest, the story predominantly unfolds on one day, which is Nov. 1, the All Saints’ Day holiday. And then, of course, there’s all these flawed characters, so it’s kind of also a play on words like: Are we all saintly? Are we all sinners? How do we do the best that we can in life?”
He added, “I never planned for my first film to necessarily be a Boston story, but that’s the way it turned out, so it was just extra special to be able to do it where I grew up and to shoot so locally.”
