Locally-made movie ‘What We Hide’ debuts Friday

Sunday is International Overdose Awareness Day. It’s no accident that Tampa-based Hungry Bull Productions is releasing its latest movie, What We Hide, over the same weekend.

It opens Friday at Green Light Cinema in St. Petersburg, and across the bay at the Tampa Theatre.

What We Hide is a gripping drama about two young sisters, Spider and Jessie, who discover their meth-addled single mother dead on the living room sofa, the flotsam, jetsam and singed paraphernalia of her addiction splayed out on the coffee table in front of her.

Terrified that the county will separate them and put them in foster care, 15-year-old Spider (McKenna Grace) comes up with a plan: They’ll hide her body, avoid answering the door or the telephone, and keep using her EBT card to buy groceries (along with plenty of chips, soda and candy). And hope nobody notices.

Spider harbors deep resentment towards her mother and what she’d become, but little sister Jessie (Jojo Regina) is in both shock and mourning.

The film’s producer, Joseph Restaino, is the founder of Hungry Bull Productions. The former director of Tampa’s Gasparilla International Film Festival has produced and financed a dozen films including the critical hits PIG (with Nicolas Cage) and Rebecca Hall’s Passing. 

“I have a lot of friends in the film industry, and I’ve always been around it,” Restaino said. “Especially since Covid, you can live anywhere and produce.”

What We Hide was shot in 2022 and ’23 in Hillsborough County (the girls’ “house” is in Plant City), and in Pinellas at Seminole High School and nearby Bauder Elementary. Hurricane Ian suspended filmmaking for six consecutive days.

In 2021, Lionsgate distributed the company’s Fear of Rain (with Katherine Heigl and Harry Connick Jr.) and Lady of the Manor (with Judy Greer, Ryan Phillipe and Melanie Lynskey), both of which were shot in the Tampa Bay area.

A co-producer on Fear of Rain had read Kay’s script – then called Spider & Jessie – and recommended it. “He said ‘It’s important to make, and it won’t take much to make it,’” Restaino recalled. “I get this all the time. I get 10 scripts a week. After about 30 days I finally read it, and the script was beautiful. I could visualize this movie being made.”

Restaino knew the script didn’t hit all the “commercial” markers (i.e. no superheroes, CGI or special effects), but as a prestige drama he felt certain “top talent” would be interested. “Our company takes chances sometimes on good material,” he said.

Grace, 19, has starred in big-budget films including Captain Marvel and the Ghostbusters sequels Afterlife and Frozen Empire, and was an Emmy-nominated cast member of the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. She is currently filming the new Hunger Games movie in Europe.

“In a movie like this, casting is everything,” Restaino explained. “Casting those sisters, and that bond you see in the movie, that’s so important. To feel that chemistry, that’s dynamic. That makes the movie. You’ve got to feel their synergy.”

He praises the movie’s casting director Jessica Kelly for pairing Grace with Regina (Where the Crawdads Sing). “Jessica’s just the best out there,” he said. “She always says it’s all about the chemistry.”

(Six degrees of separation: Texas-raised Grace’s first major film was the 2017 drama Gifted, in which she played a child prodigy growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida. The movie was written by screenwriter Tom Flynn, who was a resident of St. Pete at the time. Gifted, which was not produced by Hungry Bull, was filmed in Savannah, Georgia.)

Also in the cast of What We Hide: Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) as Mom’s violent (and suspicious) drug dealing boyfriend; Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant) as Spider’s shy new friend; and Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) as the kindhearted local sheriff.

Director Dan Kay collaborated on the script with Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune journalist Julia Keller. “My family, like millions of American families, has been directly impacted,” Kay wrote in the film’s press package. “We’ve experienced how the insidious disease of addiction not only destroys the life of the addict but tears apart the fabric and foundation of the addict’s family. It’s this damage – the collateral damage – caused by addiction that compels me.”

Grace shared an emphatic endorsement for her film on Instagram. “As an actor or crew member taking on an indie film – you’re not there for the glamour, you’re there because you love the craft and art of it all. You’re there because you believe in the story being told. Indie filmmaking is about collaboration, sacrifice, and a shared love of film. When it all comes together, what’s on screen feels even more powerful, because you know it was built from real passion.”

“This crew,” she added, “had serious passion and heart – I’ll forever cherish the laughs, cries, late night 4AM after work Taco Bell outings, surviving a hurricane together and the personal bonds and conversations about our own life experiences with addiction.”

Producer Restaino isn’t expecting a blockbuster, but then, that wasn’t the point of getting What We Hide to the screen (and to Video on Demand, where it will also be available Friday). “This was trying to bring a special film here to be proud of,” he said.

“I don’t know what the future holds in the ‘critically-acclaimed’ world, but the reviews are coming in strong. They’re coming in very well.

“I think McKenna Grace’s performance is outstanding, and she should get some acclaim for it. As for the movie, it’s a dark subject matter; I just want all audiences to see it.”

At the Tampa Theatre: Joseph Restaino will speak following Friday’s 7:30 p.m. screening. Website.

At Green Light Cinema: Restaino, co-producer Shaun Greenspan, associate producer Melissa McNerny and hair/makeup artist Monique McLaughlin will speak following Saturday’s 7 p.m. screening. Website.