Crash claims Orland filmmaker Officials say medical condition may have affected Lee’s driving

ORLAND – Local filmmaker Diane M. Lee, 61, died Tuesday night from injuries she suffered in a two-car crash on Route 1.

According to police reports, Lee was traveling alone east on Route 1 at about 6 p.m. when her car crossed the centerline and into the path of a vehicle driven by Bruce Huntzinger, 70, of Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Huntzinger was unable to avoid Lee’s car, and the two vehicles collided. Witnesses said Lee had been driving erratically just before the accident occurred.

Huntzinger’s car came to rest across the two lanes on Route 1, while Lee’s vehicle spun around and went off the north side of Route 1, down an embankment and landed in a field. All three people, who had been wearing seat belts, were taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, according to Sgt. Kelly Barbee.

Lee died there Tuesday night.

Huntzinger was treated at the hospital and released. His wife, Evelyn, 70, was listed in fair condition on Wednesday.

The accident is still under investigation, Barbee said Wednesday. Officers will be looking into whether a medical condition might have affected Lee’s driving ability.

“We’ve learned that there were some medical issues that would give us concern about her ability to drive,” Barbee said.

Lee’s death comes at a time when her filmmaking career was on the rise. Last year, her screenplay “Stolen Children,” was named the Best Screen Play of the Competition at the prestigious New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, and she recently told friends that there was serious industry interest in turning the script into a film.

A native of Connecticut, Lee studied filmmaking in college and worked for several years in the industry in Maine with the hope of breaking into filmmaking. A grant through the Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport helped her to film “Who Will Say Kaddish for Shapiro?” which was shot entirely in Maine.

David Weiss, executive director at Northeast, remembered Lee as someone who was “great to work with,” even though every encounter was “a bit of an adventure.”

“She had some of the greatest things and some of the most awful things happen to her,” Weiss said. “She had more luck, both good and bad than most people. You never knew what was going to happen next.”

Despite that, Weiss said, Lee was pretty clear about what she wanted to accomplish in her films, and was not discouraged by temporary setbacks.

“There was not a lot of doubt there when she figured out what she wanted to say,” Weiss said. “She had a clear notion of what she was about. That distinguished her. She was totally confident about the validity and importance of the vision she had.”

Lee was a regular fixture at the Alamo theater, headquarters for the film archives, first renting office space there, as a supporter who donated her films to the archives, and more recently as a filmgoer and frequent visitor. Friends and acquaintances stopped by the Alamo on Wednesday to talk about Lee.

“She added color to an otherwise colorless world,” said Jane Donnell, distribution manager at Northeast Historic Film and an unabashed “fan” of Lee.

Donnell recalled Lee’s “wild hair and crazy clothes” and the love affair she had with the arts in general and particularly with film.

“She loved films,” Donnell said. “She didn’t just watch films, she immersed herself in them. She would see a film 11 times to get everything out of it. She felt she missed different points or meanings.”

Lee encouraged the arts in the area, promoting new art ventures and urging youngsters to visit area art galleries.

“She was a very kind woman; there was a lot of love there,” Donnell said.

A longtime volunteer at the local community radio station WERU in Orland, Lee served as the “unofficial den mother” for the station, according to development director Denis Howard II.

“She helped make this place seem more like a family,” Howard said. “She was the type of person who filled the room. You always knew when Diane Lee was in the building.

“Diane was always there to help. She would always be there if you needed her. But she was also the first one to take us to task if she felt we weren’t looking into a topic she thought was important.”