For Bill Millios, the best part of making the film Dangerous Crosswinds was watching the reactions. The writer and director of the New Hampshire-made film has been in the audience at showings in Manchester and Dover, and has enjoyed hearing people gasp in the right parts and talk over the plot when the lights come up.

Millios will be there when the film plays at the Capitol Center for the Arts tomorrow night and says he welcomes any feedback.

"It's important to me to know what people think about it," said Millios, 39, of New Boston.

The movie was shot all over New Hampshire and has an unmistakable Granite State feel. It follows Harry Toland, a big-time, New York City journalist who's returning home to Hampton after getting fired. His editors didn't like the publicity over a book he wrote supporting euthanasia.

When he returns home he finds that his friend and mentor's wife has Alzheimer's. His beliefs about euthanasia are put to the test.

Without spoiling the ending, there's twist in the plot, and what would have been a philosophical dissertation turns into a dark mystery.

With the Terry Schiavo case so recently in the news, the film feels timely. However, Millios wrote the script in the early 1990s, when media attention was focused on Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his assisted suicide devices.

The subject has always fascinated Millios, who said he wanted to look at one example of how it could affect people.

But after he penned the script it ended up sitting on the shelf. It was an ambitious project, calling for a large and skilled cast and dozens of locations. A fledgling filmmaker, Millios didn't think he would be able to pull it off, until recently.

A political science major at UNH, Millios got into filmmaking soon after he graduated in 1988. He started out shooting weddings, then eventually founded a company, Back Lot Films, that made its bread and butter off industrial films: short movies corporations use to present information about themselves to clients or prospective employees.

Over the years, the company has also done short documentaries, including the exhibit films at the Millyard Museum in Manchester.

It was in 1997 that the company undertook its first feature film, Old Man Dogs. Like Dangerous Crosswinds, Old Man Dogs was shot in New Hampshire and played in Granite State movie theaters.

But there was a big difference between production for the two. Old Man Dogs was shot on film, which was then sent out to other facilities for post production work. Dangerous Crosswinds was shot using digital technology, which the crew could then edit using computer programs in its studio.

The savings in terms of time and money are what made the film possible, Millios said.

Casting began last spring and shooting began at the start of the summer. Although New Hampshire folks play some of the roles, actors from New York fill in the rest.

Scenes were shot all over the state: from Hampton to Hudson to Bedford and Chester. One of the great things about making movies in New Hampshire is that business and home owners usually don't mind you shooting on their property, Millios said.

"I have friends in L.A. who say just trying to get a restaurant for a scene is impossible," he said. "They're just saturated with filmmakers out there."

The film even has a New Hampshire soundtrack. Singer Laurel Brauns, a Gilford native, wrote much of the music for it.

And while it's fun for New Hampshire audiences to pick out the places they recognize, Millios thinks it also can affect people's ability to suspend reality for a while. For example, some people will recognize what is supposed to be a bar in Maine as the bar at the Puritan Backroom in Manchester.

But, for now, the film will play largely to New Hampshire audiences. In addition to two screenings at the Capitol Center tomorow night, the film will be shown in Lebanon, Bethlehem and Laconia, as well as Newburyport and Cambridge, Mass. (next page »)