DINDIN, Debut Feature Film From Harbor Stage Company, Sets World Premiere At Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival

Acclaimed and daring Wellfleet theater company Harbor Stage Co. will premiere their feature film debut on August 25 at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival in Vermont.

Directed by Wellfleet theater prodigal son Brendan Patrick Hughes, Dindin was written by Harbor Stage Company co-founder Brenda Withers, and stars Withers along with her fellow co-founders, Jonathan Fielding, Stacy Fischer, and Robert Kropf.

When four acquaintances gather for a civilized dinner party, sharp words, flying plates and the predator instinct lead to hard feelings, blood on the floor and maybe a deadly outcome. A darkly comic examination of the predator instinct, Dindin is a sordid mystery that unfolds over the course of a single evening.

Known for the incredible acting of its founders, the project marks the first feature film venture for Harbor Stage Company. The world premiere screening will be held in the festival's primetime slot of Friday, August 25 at 7:15pm.

Dindin is probably the first project in the history of the world to open as a play less than a month after principal photography wrapped on the feature film. Filmed during the height of the pandemic, the piece stands as a tribute to the power of a creative pivot. When real life couples Fielding and Withers, and Fischer and Kropf, who together have run the Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet for 13 years, were forced to shutter their seaside venue on the cusp of its tenth anniversary season in 2020, the co-founders were eager to somehow keep going anyway. "After a decade of running a grassroots repertory company we were used to navigating unusual circumstances," said Fielding. "What's harder for us is sitting still."

A very successful online reading of a new script Withers had written for the company sparked the idea for a film adaptation, and the team turned quickly to Brendan Patrick Hughes, their longtime collaborator and L.A. based director who'd first brought the group together in 2008. "We all met when Brendan cast us all in the theater space we now run," explained Fischer. "He has the Midas touch. He had to be part of our next big leap." Hughes then enlisted the talents of his wife, award- winning documentary cinematographer Emily Topper (Judy Blume Forever, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Miss Americana: Taylor Swift, HBO's Angel City, Disney's Light & Magic) and editor and music video director Tim Nackashi (Dirty Work, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job).

"I think what Dindin has, that most other movies do not have, is-when you talk about chemistry-these four actors have been doing plays almost exclusively with one another for 13 years," crowed Hughes. "There's nothing out there quite like what I saw through the camera when it would approach these four human beings who know each other's moves so damn well. Their talents easily overcame an obstacle like a shuttered theatre, because what they do is simply alchemical, no matter the medium they're working in." The film was completed for less than $100,000, mostly through private investment from loyal supporters of the Harbor Stage. "If there's one thing we can make a dollar out of," said Fielding, "it's fifteen cents."

Less than a month after principal photography wrapped in July 2021, Hughes went off to Los Angeles to begin editing, and the foursome quickly prepared a stage version when they learned they could open their doors. "This is exactly the most insane way to do this, we know that," said Kropf, "but desperate times call for drastic actions, and a little momentum is sometimes all you need." Critics and sold-out houses agreed - called "inventive" by the Boston Globe, the evening was described by the Valley Advocate as being played by "a superlative string quartet." A short documentary was even filmed about the process.

Director Hughes-an award-winning director of film, documentary, television, theatre and opera, a Tribeca Festival-selected podcast creator, and a professor of acting at Occidental and Santa Monica Colleges-was also a lead producer on the project, and managed the post-production process from his home in Los Angeles over the ensuing two years, as the Harbor Stage has continued to produce more seasons of theatre. He held several test screenings in Los Angeles, Boston and Cape Cod, and feels he has truly managed to capture on celluloid the diabolical and spritely wit of Withers's dramatic writing.

Dindin

World Premiere
Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, Middlebury, Vermont
Friday, August 25 at 7:15pm
In-person Q&A to follow with cast and director, moderated by Festival Artistic Director Jay Craven at Twilight Hall on the Campus of Middlebury College

www.dindinthemovie.com

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