Synopsis

Somewhere between tradition and transformation lies the Village of Three Oaks, Michigan -- home to the largest Flag Day parade in the United States. For more than seventy years, this small town has marked Flag Day with a ritual that celebrates unity even as it exposes the divides running through America. Filmed with verité intimacy, Flag Day follows eight intertwined lives, revealing how community, patriotism, and belonging play out in one corner of America at a moment when the nation itself is deeply fractured. The result is a ground-level portrait of small-town life that speaks urgently to questions of who we are -- and who we want to be.

Directors’ Statement

We have a deep connection to and many friends in the southwest Michigan farming community where the documentary was shot. We assembled a diverse team of the best cinematographers and sound recordists from the Chicago documentary community and shot the film in an observational, verité style over the course of Flag Day weekend in June 2024. We focused on a cross-section of key characters in the community and adopted a verité approach to filming the parade, the events leading up to it, and its aftermath. Our goal was to weave together the characters and personal stories in order to create rich visual tapestry and quietly reveal a deeper story about ritual, identity, and the people who breathe life into small-town America in this polarized time.

The Story of Flag Day

Origins in Small-Town America

The history of Flag Day is as layered and unexpected as America itself. Though it became a national observance in 1916, the idea began much earlier—and in small towns far from Washington. One of the first recorded celebrations took place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1861, when a local named Victor Morris urged his neighbors to mark the anniversary of the flag’s adoption with a day of remembrance.

In the years that followed, teachers and civic leaders helped the idea take root. In 1885, Wisconsin schoolteacher B.J. Cigrand led his students in what he called “Flag Birthday.” A few years later, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York, introduced a similar observance that soon spread statewide.

A National Celebration

By the 1890s, parades and ceremonies were springing up across the country—from Philadelphia’s Independence Square to the Chicago schoolyard where 300,000 children gathered in 1894 to wave flags and sing patriotic songs. President Woodrow Wilson finally proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day in 1916, honoring the date the flag was adopted in 1777. Congress made it official in 1949, when President Harry Truman signed it into law.

Keeping the Tradition Alive

Since then, towns across America have made the celebration their own. Fairfield, Washington; Appleton, Wisconsin; and Quincy, Massachusetts each claim the oldest continuous parade. And in Three Oaks, Michigan—where our documentary Flag Day: An American Dream is set—the parade has grown into the largest in the country.

Every June, people gather along Main Streets across the nation to honor not just the flag itself, but the stories, ideals, and contradictions it represents. In that enduring ritual of small-town pride and shared identity, our film finds its beginning.