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"Touching Home" was a film that shouldn't have been made, claim identical twins Logan and Noah Miller, who wrote, directed and starred in the semi-autobiographical movie. But the aspiring filmmakers tend not to take "no" for an answer.

The twins, who were raised in the Bay Area, had an alcoholic father who was homeless for the last 15 years of his life and died in jail. As depicted in the based-on-real-life The movie portrays how the twins kept each other strong and trained together to be college (Noah) and professional (Logan) baseball players.

The film had its Sacramento premiere Friday night at the Crest Theatre in front of nearly 1,000 people. The Millers were joined on the red carpet by co-star Ed Harris, producer and Sacramento developer Brian Vail, and Mayor Kevin Johnson, who introduced the film.

The brothers are hard to tell apart at times. They finish each other's sentences and stories.

"It doesn't matter really (who is who)," they said in response to a question from a fan after the movie. They might have meant that they've been through so much together that they're pretty much the same person.

They essentially play themselves in the film, giving viewers a glimpse of their strongest differences in how they react to adversity. Noah's character, Clint Winston, appears more laidback and thoughtful, while Logan, Lane Winston, is stubborn, headstrong and emotional when they're both cut from their respective baseball teams on the same day.

The Millers were physically and emotionally powerful in their acting debuts. The scenes in which they played baseball were realistic. Shots of the Bay Area, especially the nature surrounding Marin County, were especially beautiful.

The audience cheered as the opening credits rolled, the loudest for the Millers, Harris and Vail.

Harris plays Charlie Winston -- based on the twins' father, Daniel Miller -- with passion and fearlessness. He's a troubled man who can't overcome his alcoholism, yet teaches his sons about unconditional love.

It was while their father was in jail that the brothers first joked they would have Ed Harris play him. All three respected the actor and agreed that he resembled Daniel Miller.

When their father died in jail, the brothers didn't have a chance to say goodbye, so they visited his body in the morgue and promised that they'd make the film as a way to say goodbye.

They tracked down Harris in a San Francisco alley and pitched their movie. "They asked me if I would play their dad and they said I was the only guy to do it for them, and that was kind of interesting to hear," Harris said in a question-and-answer session after the film. "One thing led to another and they wouldn't let me say no."

Despite this being the twins' first screenplay, and the fact that they had no training in film-making, Harris called them nine days later and agreed to be in the movie. Still, the Millers had no funding and few Hollywood contacts.

Enter Vail.

"Brian pretty much wrote us the ($2 million) check and let us run with it," said Noah Miller, which elicited cheers from the audience.

"Touching Home" plays at the Crest Theatre through Thursday, at 5:15 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $6.50-$9 and available at the Crest Theatre box office, 1013 K St.