THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT Boston. Though New York City and Los Angeles are the Meccas of the filmmaking world, and John MacNeil is a filmmaker, he makes his home — and nearly always has — here, close to his Weston roots. And perhaps surprisingly, he’s managed to forge and maintain a successful filmmaking career in Boston for nearly two decades, working as a cameraman, producer, and director for a vast array of projects and cinematic genres. There’s been feature-film work — Next Stop Wonderland, Session 9, Malice. There’ve been music videos — for Kiss, Whitesnake, Public Enemy, the Cars, Phish. There’s been production support — MacNeil is owner of Boston Film Factory and co-owner of Boston Camera Rental.

And now there’s baseball. MacNeil’s latest project is Gift of the Game, a documentary he produced with local director Bill Haney. Gift follows novelist Randy Wayne White, Red Sox legend Bill "Spaceman" Lee, former Detroit Tigers pitcher Jon Warden, and others to Cuba, where Ernest Hemingway once founded and coached a children’s baseball league. While there, the group sets out to organize a new league for young Cuban ballplayers, while trying to find surviving players from Hemingway’s long-defunct team. The film, which won the Best of the Fest award at this summer’s Woods Hole Film Festival, will make its Boston debut at — most fittingly — Fenway Park.

Q: Why film?

A: I entered the film business about 20 years ago. I had graduated from college, I’d been living in New York, I came back to Boston, and a friend of mine who was working as a producer for a commercial production company, which is no longer in existence, said she could get me some day work as a production assistant. And I went to work — did some freelance labor as a production assistant. At about the same time, a company called Boston Camera was just opening up, and I was able to get a job there; I was the second employee at Boston Camera — a company that’s still going strong now. And now I’m actually the president of Boston Camera, and a part owner as well. So it wasn’t really a directed career path that got me here.

Q: But something has kept you here.

A: You know, I think I like the camaraderie of shooting. I like the project-by-project emphasis of this business, where you can work with a restaurant one day, you can work with a software company another day, a rock and roll band on another day. I think it allows you to explore and experience a wide variety of lifestyles, occupations, and character types without having them sort of overtake your total existence, your total life.

Q: Why did you stay in Boston? It’s not the easiest city in which to be a filmmaker.

A: It’s difficult. In many ways it’s a satellite of New York, and as New York’s fortunes rise and fall, so do ours to a certain extent, though over the last 20 years there has grown in Boston a pretty good film community. There are a lot of people who have chosen to stay here and raise families, and this is where they really would like to be. I think, as for a lot of people, strong family connections kept me here and are keeping me here now. Before, it was parents; now it’s children.

Q: If you had to move to New York or LA in order to sustain your career in this business, would you?

A: I think if I had to, yes. I think I’m very fortunate and very lucky that I can stay here, because there is not a lot of work here, but there is a decent size film community here in Boston. It’s commercials, it used to be more corporate films as well, and training films. And we used to do more rock videos. I’m hoping to see more of those come up. A lot more of them. And some feature-film work. Some local films, like Next Stop Wonderland, and some films that come in from Hollywood that would hire a large group of below-the-line crew members — electricians, grips, art department.

Q: Talk to me about the closing of the Massachusetts Film Office.

A: The Mass Film Office was in many ways a very dysfunctional organization for a while. Hopefully, it will rise again in a new form. I think it sends a bad signal to the rest of the country that there is no film office to help expedite the permitting process, the location process, etcetera. I think it was a bad thing. It’s unfortunate.

Q: Do you have a favorite project?

A: You know, the French have an expression when asked, "What’s the best vintage?" They say, "The one I have for sale right now." I’d have to say the Cuba film that I did with Bill Haney. It was great working with Bill. This was his first film as director; he’d produced some in the past.

Q: Tell me about the experience of filming in Cuba.

A: Cuba was a trip. In some ways it was very difficult; we ran into some government problems, on both sides. We had to get some permits from both sides. There’s an expression in Cuba: "Nothing works, but everything can be fixed." And that did prove to be the case there. Thankfully, there were some people within Cuba who were very film-friendly, and very helpful in getting the project made.

Q: This must be the first American film made in Cuba in a long time.

A: Certainly in a long time. [There was] Buena Vista Social Club, which was a big success. The idea with this was not to be wholly derivative or copy that film, but it was sort of the Buena Vista Social Club of Cuban baseball. The search for the heart of Cuban baseball. It was a wonderful exploration, and we found out a good bit about Ernest Hemingway, about the history of Cuban-American relations, and about how Cuba is still very much a third rail when it comes to American politics. We probably found as much anti-Castro political sentiment [in Cuba] as we did in the United States, and in some ways it was odd that we found perhaps even more pro-Castro sentiment within the United States than we did there. You know, the Cuban people have gotten the short stick for a long time, and they could not have been more gracious, intelligent, funny, easy to work with, very energetic ... it will be nice when our governments settle out their respective issues.

Q: Though I would imagine the face of Cuba will change significantly once it’s easier for us to go there.

A: Yes. And God knows what it’ll look like after Castro is gone. It’s hard even to speculate. But you’re right — it will be different. It will be very, very different.

Q: Did you play baseball while you were in Cuba?

A: I didn’t play baseball. It wasn’t really my game. But the older I get, the more I appreciate baseball. I think it’s unfortunate in some ways that baseball is now deemed by a lot of kids as too slow. They want to watch basketball, and football, which is perhaps more conducive to television. You know, baseball is a game that’s not going to be over in an hour or two. You never know how long the game will last. It’s a great way to spend a summer evening.

Q: So why do you think the children of Cuba haven’t moved on to other, faster sports?

A: I’m not sure of that. But baseball is absolutely Cuba’s game. And one of the things that you find in Cuba that I think you’d find in sort of a lost America is, if you had a group of kids together, who weren’t in school or didn’t have anything to do, these kids would put together a pick-up game of baseball, whereas here — and I think this is one of the issues of the film — as Bill Lee says, our kids are getting malled to death. So much structure, so much organization, that the parenting side, the coaching side of after-school athletics, has in some ways taken the game away from the kids.

Q: How do you get Cuban cigars home?

A: If you go down on a licensed trip, you are legally able to bring back a box of Cuban cigars and a liter of Cuban rum.

Q: How many boxes did you bring back?

A: Um ... I brought back one box of cigars and a liter of Cuban rum. I still have a few left. We smoke those on special occasions.

Q: Talk to me about the experience of working with Bill Lee.

A: Bill Lee was, and still is — we’re still working with him on a potential documentary on Bill, as well as a possible dramatic feature — extremely bright, highly energetic, in some ways eccentric, the kind of guy who is living his own life. And one of the things that you’ll immediately get from Bill is that Bill Lee is living Bill Lee’s life. Nobody else’s. Not for a minute. And in that way, he is truly an original. And really a lot of fun. He is such a heroic figure in some ways, here in Boston.

Q: Does he still play baseball?

A: He does still play.

Q: Is he any good?

A: He’s very good. He will play until they can’t lift him out of the wheelchair to play. A wonderful guy, very big heart, very generous with his time, very active with youth leagues, Special Olympics in Vermont. Won’t take a nickel for signing a baseball. Always has time for kids.

Q: Why do you think so many actors say they want to direct?

A: Film is such a collaborative medium. That being said, the directorial center of any film is where most of the control and the heart of the creative process lies. I think a lot of people — the cameraman, editors, actors — are fully aware that this is a highly collaborative business and art form, but they all want to sort of steer it to as great a degree as possible. I think that holds true for actors as well as a lot of others — electricians, grips, sound recordists, makeup artists. I think at the end of the day, most people on a film set, at one time or another, have thought they would like to direct. Or perhaps thought they could do a better job than the director.

Q: How tall are you?

A: I’m almost six-eight.

Q: You must have to bend over a lot to look through the camera.

A: I prefer to think that everybody else has to look up.

Q: What are your home movies or videos like? Are you a perfectionist?

A: You know, oddly enough, my wife is the photographer at home. And she has become a very good one.

Q: What else are you working on right now?

A: We have produced a DVD for Ellis Paul, a well-known, very highly respected, extremely talented musician here in Boston. We’re completing that now, and that’ll be out this fall. I’d like to do more music projects with singer-songwriters.

Q: What draws you to that kind of work?

A: I think there’s a type of music that I like and that a lot of my friends like that’s underrepresented by radio these days. And from my experiences with many singer-songwriters, it’s very rewarding being with people who are making music or art or films because they feel as if they have important stories to tell. That’s very rewarding. It really is. A good story, well told — at the end of the day, that’s important.

Gift of the Game screens at the 406 Club at Fenway Park, Boston, on September 10, at 6 p.m. Proceeds from the screening benefit the Boston Film/Video Foundation. Call (617) 536-1540. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com