Big River, Old Man River, Moon River

Local filming on the $2.5 million production began May 20 at the headwaters in Lake Itasca. "We had a lovely water ceremony conducted by an Ojibwa woman who conducted a blessing of the waters at the source, a beautiful place. The river begins very clean at the source. You can see through it; it's transparent. And it becomes the Big Muddy as it carries off sediment and everything else we put in it."

On their first day of shooting, the crew encountered a man who claimed to be the premier leech trapper in the area.

"That's one of the metaphors of the movie; as you follow the Mississippi from the source on down to the Gulf of Mexico, what you're seeing is various forms of leeching, from industry leeching off the river, farmers leeching off of it, the river being used in all sorts of exploitive ways, and the river trying to coexist with leeches. I'm afraid it'll be kind of a sad story, because the arc of corruption, pollution and despair is going to increase and grow as we go south, but it's a story that needs to be told."