BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – A Vermont film more than a decade in the making has finally made it to the big screen, and it had more than its share of controversy on the way to its local debut.
‘The Birth of Innocence” was created by Vermont storyteller Mac Parker, who along with silent business partner Louis Soteriou, was convicted in 2013 for embezzling $28 million from investors in the film. Some of that money went back to pay off early investors and some went into both men’s pockets. Although they went to federal prison, that didn’t stop the investors and producers from trying to get the movie to the big screen.
“I’ve worked for free for a decade to do this,” said Horace Williams, who wasn’t always the movie’s producer. He started out producing music in the ‘60s and kept it up for a number of years. That’s how he met parker in 2004, who hired him for a job. At the time, Williams says “The Birth of Innocence” was already in the works. “He called me one night and said, ‘I want you to re-edit the entire film. I want you to redo the entire film with me from scratch and I don’t want you to see the rough cut that I have,’” Williams recalled.
He agreed and worked on the film until it went belly up around 2010 when Parker and Soteriou came under investigation for operating a Ponzi scheme with funds raised for the movie.
But Williams says he kept going. “Because I had the tools, the hard drives, the IP, enough IP to protect it. I felt I had a moral…
