Nick Lusardi wrote and directed the film, which stars Hannah Tracey, Brayden Broad, Rose Cornelius, and Nick’s sister, Elizabeth Lusardi, who has frequently starred in his films.

Available to watch on YouTube, “HOMETOWN” centers on dealing with tragedy in a small town.

“It’s a humble project,” Lusardi said in a phone interview. “It connects a bunch of previous projects that I’ve done, and it’s with a lot of people that I’ve worked with. It’s about an hour long, and it features characters that I’ve created before, and actors, ranging from my sisters to my girlfriend (Tracey) to professional actors.”

Lusardi started writing it about a year-and-a-half ago, he said.

Courtesy Image Nick Lusardi’s “HOMETOWN” came out on Tuesday.

“I wrote this four-chapter, six-part story,” Lusardi said, explaining that he wanted to push himself to see what he could accomplish, to see if he could turn that script into a feature film. “I made everything a little bit out of my reach … and was able to do it, with the help of a ton of great cast and crew.”

Lusardi, a 2023 graduate of Alpena High School, now attends the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“We started filming last February, and we just finished it,” Lusardi said. “It was shot on a $1,000 budget.”

Check out Nick Lusardi’s film below. Viewing on mobile? Turn your device horizontally for the best viewing experience. Story continues below video.

Audiences should be aware the film contains suicidal themes.

“A young man’s suicide leads to his brother’s emancipation and the murder of a teenage drug dealer,” a description of the film explains.

“It’s a fictional film,” Lusardi noted. “It’s a darker topic. That’s something that I’ve done a lot throughout my filmmaking career. It talks about, after the death of the main character, Andrew, it talks about his three sisters and his brother and his girlfriend as they sort of try to cope with that. And, in turn, you learn a lot about their hometown and where they’re from.”

It was filmed in Alpena.

“You learn a lot about the interconnectedness of the characters,” Lusardi said. “And it really speaks to how one person’s actions and one singular tragedy can really motivate the actions of a lot of people in a small town, even if they don’t even know it.”

Lusardi explained why he wanted to make this film.

“I wanted to write something where every detail, from the production to the sound to the acting to the settings involved to the amount of characters that needed to be included — I wanted everything to be a little bit more than I thought I was capable of,” Lusardi said. “I’m used to creating things that only take about a month to make, that only have two or three characters, that only take place in one or two spots. And this one takes place in 20 different locations and has 25 different characters.”

He said he took his time and took it step by step to complete the project.

“When it first started, it was just a 50-page script, and it was impossible,” Lusardi said. “It just couldn’t happen. But I just started taking one step at a time to make it happen, and contacting the right people, and getting my friends involved, and getting all the most artistic people I could involved, and, finally, it’s done. And it’s even better than I could have imagined.”

You can like and subscribe to the video on YouTube by searching “Nick Lusardi HOMETOWN,” or view other films by Lusardi there.

Lusardi and Tracey also have their film, “love and lake” featured in the top five in the Sanctuary Selections Film Competition, which is part of the Thunder Bay International Film Festival. The festival runs Wednesday through Sunday, Jan. 28, and the Sanctuary Selections top five films will be shown the evening of Saturday, Jan. 27 at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

For tickets, visit thunderbayfriends.org.