Dear Zoe is a powerful coming-of-age story of resilience in which teenage Tess enlists the support of her biological father – a lovable slacker – and the charming juvenile delinquent next door in the aftermath of the death of her little sister, Zoe.
The movie is based on the novel by Pittsburgh author, Philip Beard, and the screenplay adaptation was written by Pittsburgher Melissa Martin, and Pittsburgh native, Marc Lhormer. Marc and his wife, Brenda, produced the film under their shingle Zin Haze Productions. The movie was shot entirely in Pittsburgh, PA in the fall of 2019. Key locations included Braddock, Kennywood, Squirrel Hill, downtown Pittsburgh. This movie is truly a love letter to our beautiful city!
Directed by Gren Wells (The Road Within), Dear Zoe stars Sadie Sink (Stranger Things), Theo Rossi (Sons of Anarchy), Jessica Capshaw (Grey’s Anatomy), Vivien Lyra Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Justin Bartha (National Treasure) and newcomer Kweku Collins.
Dear Zoe can be seen in select Pittsburgh theaters and will be available to rent or buy on multiple video on demand platforms as of Friday, November 4!.
Don’t Miss A Chance to Attend the Red Carpet Premiere of Dear Zoe on Wednesday, November 2!
Event Schedule:
5:00PM Red Carpet Arrivals and Hosted Reception, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, 980 Liberty Avenue
6:15PM Opening Remarks
6:30PM Dear Zoe Screening
8:00PM Q&A with Cast
$95 tickets go on sale September 24th at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. A share of net proceeds will go to Pittsburgh’s The Caring Place, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that supports grieving children and their families.
Most Hollywood movies and shows that film on location don’t leave much behind once production wraps. Anyone stepping foot on the Community College of Allegheny County’s Boyce Park campus, though, will have direct access to a piece of impending television history for as long as it remains standing.
Last year, Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television built a brand-new baseball complex over the old CCAC Boyce field to serve as the home stadium for the Rockford Peaches in “A League of Their Own,” the TV adaptation of the 1992 Penny Marshall movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The eight-episode first season that filmed throughout Western Pennsylvania last summer and fall is set to debut Aug. 12 on Amazon Prime Video.
The stadium was built to look at home both in World War II-era Rockford, Ill., and modern Western Pennsylvania so it could be used by the community in perpetuity. CCAC has already taken full advantage of the stadium’s presence on its Monroeville branch campus as both a home field for its newly rejuvenated baseball team and as an invaluable recruitment tool.
“We really appreciate the exposure we’re receiving,” Bob Keslar, CCAC’s athletic director, told the Post-Gazette. “The show isn’t even out yet and people are talking about it. It’s been a great relationship, and we’re really grateful for this opportunity to showcase our facilities and our athletes.” Joshua AxelrodAmazon drops first trailer for locally filmed ‘A League of Their Own’ series“A League of Their Own” producer James Dodson during construction of the Rockford Peaches’ home stadium on the campus of CCAC Boyce in June 2021.(Eric Dilucente)
‘Walking back in time’
Bill Spina recently completed his first year as CCAC’s head baseball coach after spending four years as an assistant. The Plum native grew up playing ball at the old CCAC Boyce field and said that it was a pretty nice ballpark “until the upkeep was neglected.”
That’s the state the field had fallen into when “A League of Their Own” location manager Eric Dilucente came across it in spring 2021.
“There wasn’t a stadium,” Dilucente said. “What they had was two dugouts and some wooden bleachers.”
The Forest Hills native with 30-plus years of entertainment industry experience had been scouring the East Coast for weeks to find a park suitable for the Peaches’ home stadium since filming of “A League of Their Own” was suddenly moved from California to Western Pennsylvania. The production also secured Aliquippa’s Morrell Field to film Peaches away games and built a smaller field on an industrial site in Ambridge for another important storyline.
Eventually, Dilucente, who took classes at CCAC before getting a degree at the University of Pittsburgh, narrowed down his choices for the Peaches’ home stadium to a field in Erie, Pullman Park in Butler and CCAC Boyce. CCAC’s spring baseball season was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so their field wasn’t in use at the time. The crew ultimately opted to build over CCAC Boyce’s field in an effort to acquire “a permanent structure” they could use again for any subsequent seasons, Dilucente said.
Construction took place from May to July 2021. The entirely local crews did everything from pouring 120 yards of concrete for the base paths and foundation to obtaining specialty steel despite supply-chain issues. Anyone who appreciates the stadium’s 1940s aesthetic on “A League of Their Own” can thank the likes of Harmony-based contractor Modany Falcone and Downtown-based Atlantic Engineering Services for bringing the stadium to life.
“Our construction crews and our team were unbelievable,” Dilucente said. “When they build something, you feel like it was always there. You feel like you’re walking back into time.”CCAC catcher Derek Colon takes a swing during the district championship series against North Carolina’s Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute on May 13, 2022, on CCAC’s Boyce Park campus.(CCAC)
That stadium feel
Bob Kelley had only been CCAC’s assistant general counsel for about a month when the notion of building a stadium for “A League of Their Own” came to his attention. Since there was a lot of turnover happening at CCAC during that period, Kelley wound up being Dilucente’s primary point person and became a de facto “project advocate” trying to convince his colleagues that the new stadium could be “a showpiece for the college.”
When Kelley visited the construction site, he expected to find a “very nice skeleton of a ballpark.” Instead, he said “it was like stepping into a time capsule.” The stadium’s partially peeling paint and slightly rusted light fixtures made it feel like it had been there for many years.
“It took a while to get everything teed up from a contractual perspective,” Kelley said. “It overshot everyone’s expectations.”
Since “A League of Their Own” vacated the stadium, it has hosted a few youth teams, some local high school squads and served as the primary home field for CCAC’s baseball team. Keslar said some small adjustments were made to comply with current requirements. For example, since protective screens behind home plate didn’t exist in the 1940s, one had to be temporarily installed.
CCAC baseball enjoyed a terrific spring 2022 season that included winning both its conference and region. The new stadium was the site of a May district championship series in which CCAC ended up falling to North Carolina’s Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute. Keslar said that about 100 fans lined the grandstands for those contests, which Spina thinks is the “most attention we’ve had from the college probably ever as a baseball program.”
“The atmosphere is fantastic,” he said. “The sound from the audience really echoes and permeates. It gives you that really good stadium feel. … It gives you extra motivation as a player once you hear the roar from a crowd.”Abbi Jacobson, left, and Chanté Adams in the Pittsburgh-shot Amazon Prime Video series “A League of Their Own.” (Amazon Prime Video)
Making history
Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer sees the CCAC Boyce stadium as physical evidence of the “far-reaching impacts” production work can have on local communities. In her estimation, the Western Pennsylvania crews who built it more or less from scratch “knocked it out of the park with a fabulous baseball stadium that I can’t wait to see on screen.”
As someone who had some connection to CCAC, Dilucente loved doing something for the school “that carries on and pays it forward to the community.” He hopes the stadium inspires fans to visit the Boyce campus once audiences see it in action on “A League of Their Own.”
“People don’t see the tourist value or advertisement value of filming,” he said. “Every neighborhood we go into, we spend tens of thousands of dollars and pump that into the local community. … That money is directly felt in all these communities. There are so many places where that makes a huge difference.”
One of those places is CCAC’s baseball program. Spina said that he has 13 returning players and 28 new recruits coming in this year. He believes the facilities Amazon and Sony created “played a large role” in convincing those players to give CCAC a shot.
If all goes well, the stadium will be open for public use “in a meaningful way” by next spring, Kelley said. Vlad St. Surin, CCAC’s dean of students for engagements, plans to hold a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the occasion.
“Everyone to some degree has an opportunity to make money, but very few have the opportunity to make history,” St. Surin said. “Because of the stadium being built, we have an opportunity to make history, build on it and serve our students.”
Classes at CCAC resume Aug. 22, and Spina plans to give his players a brief reprieve before fall-season practices start Aug. 29. He knows they’re excited to see their ballpark on “A League of Their Own” and said he’ll hold a viewing party for them once everyone is back on campus.
If the series does return to the area for more filming, he has no problems sharing his home field — as long as they can work around his team’s schedule.
“We thank them and hope the series is a success,” he said before adding with a chuckle: “We’re excited to get our field back 100%.”
Just last week, hometown hero Billy Porter’s made-in-Pittsburgh directorial debut, the coming-of-age romantic comedy “Anything’s Possible” hit Amazon Prime — but it’s far from the region’s only connection to Hollywood.
The Pittsburgh Film Office estimates that Western Pennsylvania saw about $330 million in economic impact from film and TV productions in 2021, though those numbers haven’t been finalized yet. For comparison, the annual average was about $150 million before 2021.
And 2022 looks like another blockbuster year.
Still from the “Anything’s Possible” trailer.
The local industry is growing, but so is the need for infrastructure.
Enter Carrie Furnace stage left.
“We’ve done well, using our repurposed warehouses,” says Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office. “31st Street Studio in the Strip has been amazing. We’ve got the former American Eagle distribution warehouse in Warrendale. We’ve got two former Westinghouse facilities that are being used as stages; we had a closed JCPenney as a stage out on Route 28 (for “Cha Cha Real Smooth”).
“What we’re building is something that can be used today, and for the filmmakers of the future. … This is important because the clients coming in expect to find this kind of facility … and we’d like to centralize the industry in one place.”
The state has awarded $7.6 million in grants and loans to the site’s owner, Regional Industrial Development Corporation. The bulk of that is for site preparation, infrastructure, roads, parking, and utility work needed to construct a 50,000-square-foot building hosting multiple sound stages.
“Pittsburgh is definitely a hot city for filming,” says Jesse Cute, vice president for Allied Global Marketing in Philadelphia, which promotes much of the film industry in the state. “Our film commissioner in Philly gets Pittsburgh-envy sometimes.”
Billy Porter mural featured in a still from “Anything’s Possible” on Amazon Prime.
So, Burbank by Braddock — that’s the plan?
“Ideally, we’ll have six more stages down there, plus the outbuildings that you need to make the industry happen, like production offices,” says Keezer. “And then, the longer-term plan is to have some businesses relocate down there to service the industry — what we’re calling the Pittsburgh Film Furnace.”
State tax credits end up influencing where a lot of film and TV projects end up. Pennsylvania boosted its film tax credit program to $100 million, a 30% increase, notes Keezer, but there are still more productions interested than there are tax credits available.
The areas in pink are envisioned as the most imminently developable parts of the Carrie Furnace site, spanning Swissvale and Rankin. The eastern end of the site (to the right) is expected to be developed first. Photo courtesy of the Allegheny County Department of Development.
This is a notoriously mobile business, and the film industry is growing outside of California in places such as Atlanta, New Orleans and Vancouver.
But Pittsburgh has a few built-in advantages. Unless you’re looking for beaches or deserts or a few other particular things, you can find just about any kind of “look” here, from Manhattan-like skyscrapers to the densely wooded wilderness — all just minutes apart, instead of hours. There are well-preserved buildings from many eras, from the 1900s to the 1990s. Crime drama “Mayor of Kingstown” was lured back to Pennsylvania for its next season from Canada, because it can use Erie for waterfront scenes. Also, there’s one thing you can find here that you won’t find in many other places: gigantic factories, like the former steel mill at Carrie Furnace.
“If we need a steel mill (for a scene), well it’s hard to use a working steel mill,” notes Keezer.
Local film crews are well known for their hard work and competence.
“We have some of the best crew in the industry that live in Southwestern Pennsylvania,” says Keezer. “In the old days, when we were lucky to get one project a year, they would travel to work all over the country and all over the world. But we’re so busy now because they can stay home.”
Acreage west of the furnaces. Photo courtesy of Allegheny County.
If this industry grows further locally, it will need more workers, which opens up opportunities for struggling neighborhoods like Rankin, Braddock and Swissvale.
“It’s surrounded by communities that need an industry,” says Keezer. “We’ve created this workforce training program in partnership with the IATSE union. It’s the first place outside of New York where it’s happening. We start that on Aug. 6, and we need more people to work, and there are jobs available in this industry. These are good paying family-sustaining jobs that you don’t need a college degree.”
The Pittsburgh Film Office is a good place to check for upcoming jobs and training opportunities.
Part of the script has been written to bring a piece of Hollywood to an old Mon Valley blast furnace site.
The state has awarded $7.6 million in grants and loans to the Regional Industrial Development Corporation to help with the redevelopment of the Carrie Furnaces, with the bulk of the money targeted for the creation of a sound stage to bolster the local film industry.
Don Smith, RIDC president, said the $3 million grant and $4.6 million loan will help to fund the site preparation, infrastructure, road, parking, and utility work needed to pave the way for the construction of the sound stage.
“We’re extremely confident with this latest award that [state] Sen. [Jay] Costa championed for us that we’ll be in construction next year,” he said.
The new building will total about 52,000 square feet and will house two sound stages. They will represent the first sound stages built from ground up in the Pittsburgh region.
Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, said old warehouses and other repurposed sites currently are used for sound stages needed for movie and TV productions filmed locally.
The project is part of a much broader vision known as the Pittsburgh Film Furnace — a film studio campus that will house six more sound stages, a carpentry shop, production facilities, and others for make-up, wardrobes, and the like.
Ms. Keezer said the goal is to bring together at one location much of the filmmaking process in the region, one that is now scattered over multiple sites.
“We want to try to centralize all of that,” she said.
Both she and Mr. Smith said most of the money is in place for the construction of the first building once the site work and infrastructure have been completed.
“We’re ready to go to start bringing jobs to Rankin and Swissvale,” Mr. Smith said. “People are starting to see that it’s real.”
With the surge in the production of films and shows due to streaming and the demand for new content, “we have more work than places to put them,” Ms. Keezer noted.
Last year, 11 projects were filmed in Pittsburgh. The economic impact due to such filming in 2021 totaled $330 million compared with the average of about $150 million a year.
Ms. Keezer added that the filming done in the region relies in large part on local hiring and local businesses.
The state Business In Our Sites money, approved by the Commonwealth Financing Authority, represents the second major piece of funding received by the RIDC for the Carrie Furnaces property, which straddles Rankin and Swissvale.
Earlier this month, RIDC received a $2.2 million loan from the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority to help with the construction of a $10 million flex-industrial building totaling 60,000 square feet. A groundbreaking for that one-story building is expected in the spring.
The Carrie Furnaces tower 92 feet over the Monongahela River and were once part of the U.S. Steel Homestead Works. The site, which dates back to 1884, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
RIDC is partnering with Allegheny County’s redevelopment authority to bring new life to the property.
Also receiving funding under the Business In Our Sites program Tuesday was the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
It was awarded a $1.2 million grant and a $1.8 million loan for site preparation and land development related to the third phase of its Neighborhood 91 additive manufacturing campus at Pittsburgh International Airport.
In addition, the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority received a $1.4 million grant and a $2.1 million loan to help with the expansion of the Fairywood Industrial Park.
A total of $48.7 million in Business In Our Sites grants and loans were awarded statewide.
Pennsylvania’s recently finalized $45.2 billion budget for 2022-23 has gotten a lot of attention for major accomplishments such as making record investments in education and community safety. It also has the distinction of giving the state’s film production industry a major boost in the amount of projects able to set up shop here.
For years, Pennsylvania’s film production tax credit program — which provides studios with a rebate based on how much money they spend in the commonwealth — has been capped at $70 million. Members of the state Legislature’s Film Industry Caucus and outside advocates have been working tirelessly to increase that figure to at least $125 million in order to attract more productions and, subsequently, more money, to Pennsylvania via its entertainment sector.
Their efforts paid off last week when a provision enshrined in House Bill 1342 and Pennsylvania’s 2022-23 tax code officially increased the film tax incentive from $70 million to $100 million and allocated $5 million to “Pennsylvania film producers.” The bill’s language also states that the new $100 million cap “shall remain at the amount allocated for fiscal years beginning after June 30, 2022, and ending before July 1, 2025.”
“This is a victory for the working people of Pennsylvania, those individuals who work in this production space,” Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills and co-chair of the state Senate’s Film Industry Caucus, told the Post-Gazette. “It’s going to attract movie and TV productions alike to our region and stimulate local economies.”
Costa and Film Caucus co-chair Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Monongahela, had introduced legislation to expand the film tax credit program on two separate occasions prior to this $30 million increase. Their attempt at adding $55 million to the film incentive failed in last year’s budget cycle, but they kept trying to convince their colleagues that the alleged $1 billion worth of film and TV projects knocking on Pennsylvania’s door was enough reason to up the tax credit.
They both said that this bill is not only a boon for local entertainment workers, but also for the businesses that will reap the benefits of Hollywood productions using their towns and neighborhoods as a home base.
“These are really good-paying jobs that provide livelihoods for families to move here, stay here, buy a home and put their kids through college,” Bartolotta said. “To see that, after all these years, we moved the needle to go up $30 million right now will give us the opportunity to bring hundreds of millions of capital investment into Western Pennsylvania.”
Bartolotta name-checked both Pittsburgh Film Office Director Dawn Keezer and Haddad’s Inc. CEO David Haddad for being “great advocates and storytellers for the benefit of this film tax credit and what it brings to Pennsylvania.” Keezer appeared before a Senate panel in April as part of a discussion about potentially expanding the state’s film tax credit program during the upcoming budget cycle.
She told the Post-Gazette that the 11 projects filmed in southwestern Pennsylvania last year had a more than $300 million in economic impact on the region.
Haddad, whose company rents out film equipment to productions nationwide, is also the chair of the Pennsylvania Film Industry Association, an advocacy group that had been working with the likes of Costa and Bartolotta to explain what increasing the film incentive could do for Pennsylvania’s economy on both state and local levels. The Pleasant Hills native has also been on the board of the Pittsburgh Film Office for 26 years.
He said that the original $125 million ask was based on the amount of film tax incentive PAFIA calculated would be required to attract enough productions for a full year of work. The original $70 million incentive accounted for about six months of work, and Haddad thinks this new $100 million cap should buy Pennsylvania at least nine months worth of film and television projects to keep entertainment workers busy.
“We’re extremely pleased,” he said. “We’ve been working for eight years to bump the credit. It’s been a long journey and roller coaster ride. But we’re glad the legislators and branches of government have seen how successful it was and expanded it.”
He also touted the $5 million set aside for Pennsylvania-based filmmakers as “a feather in our cap” in terms of giving more local creatives a shot at making their dream film or show. That said, Haddad made it clear that “our work is not done yet” when it comes to getting that film tax credit up to the desired $125 million threshold.
For now, though, those who fought for a more robust film tax credit pie are celebrating what they view as an incremental but still necessary victory.
“We wanted to make a clear statement that we value the relationship we have with these folks from across the country and that we want them to come here to produce shows and movies,” Costa said. “Our workforce stands ready and we’re looking forward to the economic impact this will have in the state.”
The Pittsburgh Film Office is pleased to announce that Pittsburgh is one of the top 5 small cities and towns on MovieMaker Magazine’s list of the Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker in 2022! MovieMaker compiles its annual list based on surveys, production spending, tax incentives, additional research, and personal visits, whenever possible.“It is great to have the Pittsburgh region recognized once again as one of the BEST PLACES TO LIVE AND WORK IN MOVIEMAKER MAGAZINE.” Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer says. “We are grateful that the amazingly gifted local crew and talent has been recognized for their incredible skills to bring stories to the screen.” “As a former Pittsburgher, I tell everyone who will listen that it may be the most underrated movie city in America,” says MovieMaker editor-in-chief Tim Molloy. “Stunningly cinematic, from the skyline to the inclines to the gorgeous greenery to all the authentic, historic neighborhoods, it’s a storyteller’s dream — and it’s affordable, culturally thriving, and one of the friendliest places you’ll ever go. The Pittsburgh Film Office does an exceptional job of helping productions of all sizes. I’m thrilled and not at all surprised that the local film business is as busy as it’s ever been.”
PITTSBURGH – The Department of Public Works announced today that it has granted a permit to Fidelis Productions, LLC to close Pitcairn Road between the Sugar Camp Park entrance in Pitcairn Borough and Tilbrook Road in Monroeville as well as Stroschein Road between Pitcairn Road and Wyngate Drive in Monroeville. The closures will occur from 7 p.m. Thursday, July 29 to 5:30 a.m. Friday, July 30. They are required for a film shoot. Residents who live within the closure areas will have access to their homes at all times. Pitcairn Road traffic will be detoured using Wall Avenue, Broadway Boulevard (Route 130), Brinton Road, Rosso Drive, and Tilbrook Road. Stroschein Road traffic will be detoured using Wyngate Drive and Monroeville Boulevard. For more information, contact John Adkins at 412-352-6465 or [email protected].
Scammers have been targeting film crew on job or listing websites with false job offers posing as real film industry professionals.
Be wary of suspicious emails.
Please call the Pittsburgh Film Office to verify the legitimacy of any productions that contact you.
In some cases, the scammer will try to mail checks to you as pre-payment, usually in the amount of thousands of dollars. They will ask you to deposit the check promptly, and it will bounce.
DO NOT DEPOSIT OR CASH CHECKS RECEIVED BEFORE BEING INTERVIEWED OR STARTINGWORK.
The scammers may also offer to meet with you in person. Please be careful and investigate job offers before going to any location. Ask questions and do research.
PITTSBURGH – The Department of Public Works announced today that it has permitted Fidelis Productions, LLC to move the dates of its upcoming road closures in the Municipality of Monroeville and Pitcairn Borough. Pitcairn Road between the Sugar Camp Park entrance and Tilbrook Road as well as Stroschein Road between Pitcairn Road and Wyngate Drive will now close from 7 p.m. Friday, June 25 to 4 a.m. Saturday, June 26. The closures are required for a film shoot. Residents who live within the closure areas will have access to their homes at all times. Pitcairn Road traffic will be detoured using Wall Avenue, Broadway Boulevard (Route 130), Brinton Road, Rosso Drive, and Tilbrook Road. Stroschein Road traffic will be detoured using Wyngate Drive and Monroeville Boulevard. The closures were originally scheduled to occur overnight on 6/18. However, due to recent storms, streetlight work necessary for the film shoot has been delayed. For more information, contact John Adkins at 412-352-6465 or [email protected].
