ORONO – “Penobscot Basket Maker,” a documentary by Orono filmmaker Jim Sharkey about Indian Island basket maker Barbara Francis, has been nominated for an Emmy in the educational-instructional category by the Boston-New England Chapter of the National Television Academy.

The documentary aired on Maine Public Television in June 2004 and has been distributed to schools, libraries and individuals nationwide. It was shown at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco in November 2003.

Penobscot Barbara Francis has been making baskets at her home on Indian Island for more than 20 years. She has won numerous national awards for her baskets and recently has been invited by the Peabody-Essex Museum in Massachusetts to give demonstrations on Penobscot basketry.

She also has been invited by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington to work in preserving its catalog of Penobscot artifacts.

Sharkey learned photography and filmmaking while serving in the U.S. Navy, and later worked as a news photographer in North Carolina.

Now living with his family in Orono, he wanted to do a film project about crafts, and found basket maker Barbara Francis via the Internet.

“I am attracted to meaningful work and beautiful work, basic stuff you can use but that you can also look at and admire,” Sharkey said during an interview in 2003.

“Everybody has a story to tell. I relate to that story and understand it,” he explained. “So that is where I focus. If I relate and understand, then I think everybody does.”

The film includes the tradition of basket making, but also takes in the drama of a woman stranded by poverty and dealing with a debilitating disease, rheumatoid arthritis.

Yet Sharkey calls it a positive film, one he believes “will give hope to people in similar circumstances.”

Francis said about her baskets in the film, “They look empty to people, but a real person will know they’re not empty at all. They’re very full. They’ve got history and culture and spirituality and creativity. They have everything in them. They’re never empty.”

Emmy categories were judged by members from the Chicago, San Diego, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and the National Capital Chapters of the National Television Academy. The 28th annual Emmy Awards Ceremony will be held May 7 at the Boston Convention Center.

Jim Sharkey and Carol Toner, of the Maine studies department at the University of Maine, have recently finished “Hard Work,” a documentary about Maine women industrial workers in the 19th century.

For information on Jim Sharkey’s films, visit www.folkfilms.com.