Harold Ashton portrays the hermit Horst, who welcomes Elwood (Frank Iacobucci) to his forest hut in a scene from “Lumberjacking,” which was filmed in western Cranston.

A film that centers on a man who refuses to give up his ax to fell trees in favor of a chain saw is the unlikely premise of writer-director Rich Camp’s “Lumberjacking,” which will have its world premiere Saturday at the newly restored Park Cinema (now renamed the Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts at the Historic Park Theater) in Cranston.

The 23-year-old Camp, a graduate of New York University’s prestigious film school, said the idea for his 90-minute feature film struck him when he was stacking wood for his fireplace, “trying to imagine how they did it before the log splitter and the chain saw.”

“Lumberjacking” was shot from late July to Sept. 1 in “10-hour days, four days a week” in the forests of western Cranston with a “group of friends who have been working together for years.” The film is set in the 1960s and uses a great many period vehicles borrowed from people in the community. A barroom scene was filmed at McShawn’s, a pub on Cranston Street, where “we shot on a Sunday morning and had free rein of the place.” Radio host John DePetro plays a bartender in the scene.

Seventy-four-year-old Harold Ashton, who spotted a casting call notice on an Internet site, plays the hermit that the film’s hero meets after moving to a forest “to become one with nature.”

Camp said that one reason the film is having its world premiere at the Park and not just being shipped off to faraway film festivals is so the people who helped him make “Lumberjacking” –– with a budget of a meager $1,000 –– could see it. “There’s not much chance that Warner Brothers will pick it up or give us $10 million for a follow-up,” he readily admitted. “I just wanted to get the community excited. If it opened at a regular film festival, chances are that no one who participated would see it.”

“Lumberjacking” will be screened at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Park Cinema, 848 Park Ave., Cranston. Tickets are $10 at the door or at lumberjackingmovie.com.

mjanuson@projo.com