Duplin County native Andy Brown will debut his very first feature film on Nov. 15 in the city where he shot it — Wilmington.

Brown, whose parents L.E. and Rita Brown still live in Magnolia, is hoping that the screening will be a sellout for the hometown boy who made good.

The comedy that Brown wrote and directed is called “Port City,” and it will be screening as part of the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington. The film stars Matt Lutz, former child star Jodie Sweetin, Natalie Canerday, Barbara Alyn Woods and John Wesley Shipp.

“It is very exciting,” Brown said Tuesday from his office in North Hollywood, California. “It has taken a while, years, for everything to get going, and now being part of the Cucalorus Film Festival with so many other talented artists and films, is going to be great.”

Brown, whose production credits include series for The N, Sci-Fi Channel and FOX, said that working on “Port City” has been a labor of love.

“I grew up living very close to Wilmington ... My parents and I would go there a lot when I was a kid, and I have always loved it,” he said. “I eventually lived there for about six months, and when I started writing the film, I definitely had Wilmington in mind. I have watched movies and television and wanted to write about the urban south, because no one was really doing that. I wanted to show that there are cities in North Carolina that really do have a lot of diversity.”

“Port City,” is listed as a dark comedy that interweaves several stories, chronicling the lives, loves and adventures of a group of diverse, inter-related characters living in and around the port city. It recently played to rave reviews at the Secret City Film Festival in Oak Ridge, Tenn., something that pleased its director/writer. “Oh yes, that was a thrill for me,” Brown said. “I have seen it so many times from working on it, and to screen it for the first time and have people laughing hysterically in all the right places and get really involved with the characters, it makes you feel really good.”

The 1991 James Kenan graduate, who has been in the entertainment business for over a decade, said he felt honored to get such a diverse ensemble cast.

“To be such a small production, I was very lucky to cast actors that people have heard of,” he said, laughing. “They all worked very hard and on a limited budget. Everyone came together and did a great job.”

Although directing what he has written was a challenge, Brown said he didn’t have too much time to think about it. “Like I said, it was a small production and I was busy running around trying to get things done, so, I didn’t have a lot of time to focus on just one thing — I think that was a good thing.”

For now, Brown will continue submitting the film to festivals in hopes of getting a distributor. “That is what I am doing now,” he said. “It is a lot of work but hopefully the right person will see it and want to distribute it wide release.”

He is also working on a reality show for Home and Garden Television (HGTV). “It is called ‘First Time Design’,” he said. “It will be coming out pretty soon. So you can look for that as well.”

For more information on the film, “Port City” click on www.portcitythefilm.com or for ticket information to the 2009 Cucalorus Film Festival, click on www.cucalorus.org.

To reach Doug Clark call 910-592-8137 ext. 123 or send e-mail to sisports@myclintonnc.com.