FILM PREVIEW
Atlanta Film Festival
March 20-29 at the Plaza Theatre (1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E., Atlanta) and other sites. Tickets, $10 most screenings. www.atlantafilmfestival.com.
ON MYAJC.COM
AJC senior managing editor Bert Roughton Jr. wrote a Personal Journey about Dante Stephensen in April 2013, a few months before Dante's Down the Hatch closed. You can read the story on myajc.com.
ON MYAJC.COM
AJC senior managing editor Bert Roughton Jr. wrote a Personal Journey about Dante Stephensen in April 2013, a few months before Dante's Down the Hatch closed. You can read the story on myajc.com.
When Jef Bredemeier and other employees of Dante’s Down the Hatch were called into a meeting by raconteur/restaurant owner Dante Stephensen in November 2012 and told that the quirky Buckhead landmark would be closing, he had two immediate reactions.
One was stunned disbelief, the other a feeling that someone should be recording it for posterity. After all, Dante’s had operated for more than four decades. It represented living Atlanta history, and all too soon it was going to become history itself.
Quickly assessing that no one else was committing the restaurant-nightclub to tape in its final months, Bredemeier boldly decided he would, even though he had minimal filmmaking experience and limited funds.
His 91-minute documentary "Dante's Down the Hatch" will receive its world premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival, the 10-day independent film extravaganza launching Friday at the Plaza Theatre and other sites.
Bredemeier’s documentary became the 39th annual fest’s instant hot ticket, its March 29 screening in the Plaza’s 324-capacity main downstairs auditorium selling out in a record five days. Tickets are growing scarce for a hastily added encore showing at 7 that night, and now the novice filmmaker is talking to organizers about a possible one-week, post-festival commercial run at the Ponce de Leon Avenue cinema.
It’s a development as unlikely as Dante’s Down the Hatch, a fondue restaurant designed around a ship, complete with crocs swimming in a surrounding moat and live classic jazz.
“Dante’s had such an effect on so many people,” said Bredemeier, 34, a painter-photographer who made ends meet as a 13-year employee. “I just really think that he deserves recognition for what he’s done, what he’s defined in the industry. He raised the bar.”
Stephensen made his surprising decision in the face of escalating property taxes and in response to an offer to sell the valuable Peachtree Road real estate. It was generous enough to allow him to give all the employees who didn’t jump ship before Dante’s sailed into the sunset a one-year severance package.
Such largesse is virtually unheard of in the restaurant industry but typical of positive thinker and master team-builder Stephensen, to whom most of the 2,500-plus employees over 43 years felt what Bredemeier characterized as “a mad loyalty.” (Stephensen will return some of that to the filmmaker by doing Q&As with him after both screenings.)
Bredemeier plowed most of what he made before Dante’s closed its doors in July 2013 as well as his severance into the documentary, which he estimates cost somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000.
He eschewed Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding platform, he said, concerned that he “had no idea if I would be able to pull this off.”
“Gathering funds and promising a product, I was nervous about that,” he acknowledged.
But he learned about shooting, editing and other processes by watching endless tutorials on sites such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Creative Cow.
Bredemeier said he was thrilled to be accepted into the Atlanta Film Festival, but doesn’t think he’s due any credit for the remarkable ticket demand.
“It’s people coming out to see (Dante’s), what they miss so much,” he said. “But if the reaction is amazing from the crowd, then, yes, I will be over the moon.”
The person whose opinion Bredemeier no doubt values the most, Stephensen, gave the finished film a thumbs-up.
“He shed a little tear. He just loved it. He thought it captured what he created.”
FILM FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
(All screenings at the Plaza Theatre unless noted.)
"I Am Michael," starring James Franco as a gay journalist-activist who goes straight on his way to becoming a pastor, is the major opening-night attraction. With Franco appearing at the 7:30 p.m. Friday screening, it sold out quickly.
"Old South," Danielle Beverly's documentary about what happens when a University of Georgia fraternity known to fly a Confederate flag moves into a historically black Athens neighborhood (12:45 p.m. Saturday).
"Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey," following now-90-year-old actor Hal Holbrook, who has performed a one-man Mark Twain show for six decades (8 p.m. Saturday at the Inn at Serenbe Pavilion; 4 p.m. March 29 at Plaza).
"Blood, Sweat and Beer," a documentary chronicling two new craft breweries in Maryland and Pennsylvania (noon Sunday, followed by a Food on Film Party, with samples of local brews, at 1:30 p.m. at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, $20 for both).
"While We're Young," Noah Baumbach's marriage comedy starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts (7 p.m. March 25).
"In Our Son's Name," Atlanta filmmaker Gayla Jamison's documentary about the peaceable, post-9/11 path followed by Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez after they lost their son, Greg, in the terrorism (7:15 p.m. March 26).
"Breathe" ("Respire"), a French drama from director-actress Melanie Laurent that charts an obsessive, and ultimately destructive, friendship between two teenage girls (9:30 p.m. March 27).
"Sunshine Superman," a documentary about Carl Boenish, considered the father of BASE jumping (parachuting from a skyscraper or a cliff), with director Marah Strauch appearing at the screening (7 p.m. March 28).
"Love & Mercy," the Brian Wilson bio-pic with both John Cusack and Paul Dano playing the Beach Boy (12:15 p.m. March 29).
"Game of Thrones," a free preview of the season five debut episode of the HBO hit (7:30 p.m. March 29 at the Fox Theatre; limited tickets remain for walk-ups, with doors opening at 6 p.m.).
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