West River Valley premiere of ‘Bills Lumber’ Jan. 4

The public is invited to a free showing of Bills Lumber, a documentary about the last days of the Bills family’s beloved antique sawmill.

This premiere in the West River Valley will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 4 at the Williamsville Hall, 35 Dover Road in Newfane. The building is handicapped accessible.

The 45-minute video follows the Bills family, after the mill sold along with 433 adjoining acres, as they prepare to demolish the working sawmill that their late father Melbourne Bills had established in 1936 in Wardsboro. Melbourne’s sons, Alan and Everett, now in their 80s, talk about what it was like to grow up on “Bills Hill,” their family compound on Route 100 in Wardsboro. They recount harrowing tales of fire and flood and tell funny stories about delivering wood.

“They go from the anguish of destroying their own mill to comic relief in a flash,” said videomaker Theresa Maggio. “These are amazingly resilient people. I feel lucky to know them.” Maggio had interviewed the formidable Melbourne Bills and his wife, Mabel, in the early 1990s when she was a reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer. “The moment I heard that Bills Lumber had been sold, I knew I had to tell the story. It was a world fading away.”