Northport and Edie Falco in '3 Backyards'

In May of 2008, writer-director Eric Mendelsohn knocked on the door of a traditional Colonial on Fifth Avenue in Northport, hoping for permission to film there.

It would involve total chaos for about a week, he explained to the owner, Judy Siger, a retired nurse. She and her husband would have to live elsewhere. Their belongings would be boxed up, their pictures taken down, new pictures hung. The floors would be covered in plastic and trampled by dozens of crew members each day. And although Hollywood studios often compensate displaced homeowners, Mendelsohn had no money to offer.

"It's going to be just terrible," he told her.

She said yes.

Siger became one of many Northport residents who helped Mendelsohn as he made his third film, "3 Backyards." With a minuscule budget of about $300,000, he relied quite literally on the kindness of strangers. Door knocks, phone calls and an ad in the Northport Observer brought in some surprisingly generous offers. A physical therapy office served as headquarters, Nina's Pizzeria became a meeting space and nearly every prop -- from a little girl's bracelet to a passing garbage truck -- came from local people or businesses.

"The residents of Manhattan could not care less when a film is shooting here," says Mendelsohn, 46, who was raised in Old Bethpage but now lives in the West Village and teaches film directing at Columbia University. "But it was a big deal in Northport, and they got as excited as we were. It was a collaboration."

Long Island has figured in various movies, including

"Lymelife," a 2009 autobiographical drama by the Syosset-raised Martini brothers, and the 1997 comedy-drama "The Daytrippers," by Dix Hills writer-director Greg Mottola, but rarely as prominently as in "3 Backyards." Nearly every scene and physical object in the film belongs to Northport, including its star, Edie Falco, who grew up there.

Falco's a fan of the director

The film -- which opened last week in Manhattan and comes to Long Island Friday -- marks Falco's second feature collaboration with Mendelsohn, following his 1999 debut feature "Judy Berlin," filmed partly in his hometown of Old Bethpage. The two met during the mid-1980s while attending SUNY Purchase, he in the visual arts program, she in acting.

"He's my best buddy," Falco says. "I'm a big fan. His sensibilities, his philosophies, the stuff he finds interesting -- I'm moved by it."

In "3 Backyards," Falco plays Peggy, a housewife and amateur painter, one of several characters whose narratives unfold over a single day. Kathryn Erbe ("Law & Order: Criminal Intent") and Elias Koteas ("Shutter Island") are an unhappily married couple; newcomer Rachel Resheff plays a little girl looking for a lost bracelet; Embeth Davidtz ("Junebug") has a small but crucial role as a troubled actress renting a home in the area.

Mendelsohn says he chose Northport for its old architecture and pretty vistas, but the town's artsy streak -- writers Jack Kerouac and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry were residents -- also proved valuable to a filmmaker with his hand out. "I've always loved the arts," says Siger, explaining why she loaned her home to a man she'd never met. "I know what it's like trying to break into the business when you're in the arts. It's hard."

Magical suburbia

The film, which won a directing award at last year's Sundance Film Festival, has been praised for its evocative portrayal of suburbia as a secretive, mysterious, almost magical place. That's an unusual approach in the movies. From "Revolutionary Road" to "American Beauty" and even going back to 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," suburbs have frequently been painted as cultural wastelands or cauldrons of marital strife.

That wasn't Mendelsohn's experience. He recalls learning about Degas from his schoolteacher mother, listening to Bruckner with his scientist father and reading poetry with his teachers. And though he lives in Manhattan, Mendelsohn says he searches constantly (if naively) for an affordable dream home on the North Fork.

"Long Islanders themselves always have a kind of browbeaten, keep-your-head-down quality, as if the people in New York are the real sophisticated, intelligent people. And I don't believe it," he says. "I'm tired of cliches in general, but certainly Long Islanders are much better than that."

INFO "3 Backyards" opens 7:15 p.m. Friday with star Edie Falco and writer-director Eric Mendelsohn appearing in person at Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington. Tickets are $35. The film will continue a theatrical run for at least one week. 631-423-7611; cinemaartscentre.org.