BEAVER FEVER. Hundreds of Beavers, a silent black-and-white film, will be shown at the Micon Downtown Cinema on Jan. 28. (Submitted images)

One applejack salesman must defeat hundreds of beavers in the frigid Wisconsin wilderness – does he have what it takes? Hundreds of Beavers, a silent, black-and-white slapstick comedy follows Jean Kayak in a 19th-century Wisconsin winter as he navigates action, romance, and hundreds of beavers.

The film’s star and producer, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, and director and editor, Mike Cheslik, began writing the film in 2019 and started shooting in Wisconsin and Michigan during the winters of 2020 and 2021. The duo have been creating videos together since high school in Milwaukee, and their first feature together, Lake Michigan Monster, is available to stream online.

Tews said he and Cheslik went into the Hundreds of Beavers project wanting to create something completely unique from films made in modern media and ring in the 2020s by paying homage to silent film styles of the Roaring Twenties.

“We just wanted to make a movie that had no language barrier,” Tews said. “And we wanted a slapstick physical comedy because that’s just something that we always really loved and that we don’t really see anymore.”

The 1 hour, 48-minute film has been included in over 50 film festivals around the world – including Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia – and has won more than 20 awards, including “Best Comedy Feature” at Eau Claire’s Midwest Weirdfest. The film will now be doing a theatrical run across the United States and Canada, and will be available to rent or buy digitally beginning Feb. 9.

The cast and crew will be traveling to 14 cities in 16 days for the Great Lakes Roadshow, and one of those cities is Eau Claire. At 7pm on Sunday, Jan. 28, Cheslik and Tews – along with some of their beaver brethren – will host a showing of the movie at the Micon Downtown Cinema (315 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire). Tews said the event will include some mischief and antics from the crew during the movie and will conclude with a Q&A about the film.

“This is a movie made by Wisconsinites for Wisconsinites, and it could quite literally be the greatest film ever made in the state,” Tews said. “So it’s definitely worth seeing on the big screen.” Check out the beaver-y madness yourself when Hundreds of Beavers makes its way to Downtown Eau Claire.

View the movie’s trailer here:

Purchase tickets to the show and learn more about the film at hundredsofbeavers.com.