Dunedin-made Hallmark movie to premiere Friday

Fans of the Hallmark Channel’s made-for-TV movies are familiar with the plot: Boy and girl meet cute in a small town. Somebody has a tough decision to make – stay there or move back to the big city? There are heartwarming family interludes and loads of charm. Love somehow conquers all.

There are variations, of course, but that’s pretty much the Hallmark template. The greeting card channel has produced four films in the Tampa Bay area since 2019. The fifth, A Taste of Love, premieres Friday at the Dunedin International Film Festival and will debut on the Hallmark Channel Feb. 19.

A Taste of Love, however, took a circuitous route to Hallmark. Dreamed up by Visit St. Pete/Clearwater and its film commission, along with Tampa-based production company Digital Caviar (Lady of the Manor), it was partially financed by county money as a way to garner national attention for Dunedin, where the story is set and where the movie was made in July 2021.

According to Digital Caviar founder and CEP Todd Yonteck, one of the producers of A Taste of Love, there was no distributor at first. “Everybody kind of followed the template of what Hallmark does,” he said, and so they pitched the script to Hallmark.

Hallmark passed.

Producer Todd Yonteck

A Taste of Love went through several re-writes. “So it’s not a typical Hallmark film, I guess, when it comes down to it,” said Yonteck, “but it’s still a rom-com, family-oriented.”

Because the streaming market is somewhat clogged with product, he believes, the company passed at first because A Taste of Love wasn’t attached to any “name” stars.

But producers organized a mostly-local, union film crew and made the movie anyway. “I think Dunedin is the perfect place to shoot a romantic comedy,” said Tony Armer – the county’s now-former film commissioner – at the time. “It’s a beautiful small town, Main Street America. We’re in the middle of the Tampa Bay area, which is obviously a big market, but this is a nice, small slice-of-life right here that it’s the perfect spot for this type of film.”

Erin Cahill and Martin Kove in the kitchen at Dunedin’s Sea Sea Rifers.

Hallmark veteran Erin Cahill plays a famous network TV chef who’s facing a big career decision; to clear her head, she returns to her hometown (Dunedin) where her parents (Matin Kove and Susan Gallagher) are about to close the family restaurant.

She also re-connects with her childhood boyfriend (Jesse Kove), who’s grown into the town hunk.

So A Taste of Love has a culinary sub-plot; mostly it’s about the breathless beauty of downtown Dunedin and the Pinellas beaches.

“St. Pete/Clearwater was a big investor in it, and we wanted to make sure they were represented well,” said Yonteck.

The film was edited and put through post-production in 2022. “Some of the other investors weren’t happy that we sat on the film so long, they wanted to go ahead and move it forward. But I waited till I found an outlet which I thought would be good. Which was Hallmark.”

Once Hallmark execs saw the finished, polished film, they snapped it up.

Residents will spot lots of local landmarks; indeed, the “family restaurant” at the center of the story is Sea Sea Riders, which has been at 221 Main Street since 1988. “Part of the deal with Pinellas County was that we would not change any names,” Yonteck explained. “It had to stay true blue to Dunedin.”

The final budget was $1.5 million, slightly less than originally projected.

“I’m very happy with it,” Yonteck said. “We made on-set decisions with the script here and there, and had some battles with other producers over what was best for the film. But all in all, I think everybody delivered a really good product.”

A Taste of Love premieres at 8 p.m. Friday at the Dunedin International Film Festival. Actors Martin and Jesse Kove will hold a panel discussion at 2 p.m. Friday. For all details, and tickets, visit the website here.