Rateliff adds a “Lovers” touch to poignant Denver Film Festival screening

In many ways, Nathaniel Rateliff’s journey to the largest concert stages in the world can be traced back to the hi-dive – the beloved Denver dive-bar concert venue at 7 S. Broadway.

The hi-dive stood as the primary location for Taylor McFadden’s feature-film debut, “Lovers,” which had its jam-packed premiere screening on Sunday at the MCA Denver’s Holiday Theatre. Rateliff not only serves as executive producer, his voice can be briefly heard on the soundtrack and, if you look closely enough, you’ll see Rateliff and his band, The Night Sweats, playing on the climactic song in the film, which is about a group of thirtysomething friends re-gathering at their favorite bar after the suicide of one of their own.

Most lovingly, Rateliff also serves as partner to McFadden, the film’s director and screenwriter. And on Sunday, he was beaming at the opportunity to stand back in support of her realizing her creative dreams.

“I am very excited for Taylor,” Rateliff told me on the red carpet before the screening. “I mean, we’ve been together for seven years, and she’s been working on this film since the start of our relationship. She’s been very supportive of me the whole time, and it’s just nice to be able to do the same for her. I feel like we’ve been on quite the journey together, and it’s nice to finally have this film coming to fruition.”

Pretty much the entire ensemble cast reassembled at Sunday’s screening, looking very meta – like a group of reuniting friends themselves, only under much happier circumstances than in the melancholy film. They were there to share in this moment with McFadden, whom actor Angela Trimbur says “is just like a beam of light.”

“Lovers” marks the acting debut of Amelia Meath, known in indie circles as half of the North Carolina band Syvlan Esso, who said the movie fulfills her lifetime dream to act. “When I read the script, I immediately called Taylor and said, ‘I’ve got to be in this because I know this story,” she said.

They all gathered Sunday in the hope that this heartfelt film reaches audiences struggling with the loss of loved ones to depression or addiction.

“I just hope that it can provide people with a softer and easier lens to look at mortality,” Meath said. “Being able to make a film about a group of people coming together around their collective grief is something that I think humans need to get better at doing in general.” Added Trimbur: “Surrounding yourself with people you love is just always the answer.”

For Rateliff, it’s personal. He’s written several deeply meaningful social tributes to his record producer, Richard Swift, since his 2018 death from alcohol addiction.

“I think I want people to recognize their own suffering and to know that we all are carrying a lot of that same thing,” Rateliff said. “It’s important to give ourselves the allowance to be able to communicate that we’re feeling this way. And I think it’s harder with substance abuse because it does create a gap and you feel alone in your own struggle. I think people start to think that those feelings are singularly theirs when it’s really just a part of the human experience.”

On a lighter note, much of the conversation circled back to the central character in the film: The hi-dive itself, and, specifically the ever-unchanged, lingering couch that has occupied the bar’s basement green room for decades.

“I feel like there are secret drugs that I’ve never even known about that have been done down there,” Meath said with a laugh. It’s been two years since “Lovers” was filmed, and Trimbur says she still remembers the “hi-dive smell.” Asked to elaborate, she ruminated: “The hi-dive smells like memories.”  

Rateliff moved to Denver in 1997 and formed several iterations of bands like Born in the Flood, which in 2007 was designated the Denver band most deserving of more mainstream attention by a music festival I cofounded with Ricardo Baca called The Underground Music Showcase.

Look at him now: Just the night before, Rateliff so spellbound the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis that the Minnesota Star Tribune music critic declared him America’s Van Morrison.

And yet, just three weeks ago, Rateliff invited local music artists to the Skylark Lounge (which he helped save in 2022) for a full day of free holistic health-and-wellness services. His foundation, The Marigold Project, supports community and nonprofit organizations working on issues of racial, social and economic justice.

I asked him why he (still) does it.

“Well, this is my community,” he said. “This is my town, too. I’ve been blessed and supported by so many people here, so it’s important to give back.”

And, speaking of towns: After the screening ended, Rateliff joined Meath onstage for a quietly affecting cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown,” which in many ways aptly describes the theme of McFadden’s film.     

REACHING HER DESTINY

Ryan Destiny, best known for her roles in the TV shows “Star” and “Grown-ish,” accepted Denver Film’s Rising Star Award before a screening of “The Fire Inside,” a biopic about the triumphs and struggles of two-time Olympic boxing champion Claressa Shields.

“I’m very, very happy that a little glimpse of her story is being told,” Destiny said. “She’s someone who deserves it so, so much. We’re all hoping this film reaches people so they can know where she came from and what she overcame. She’s accomplished so much, and she’s already a legend in her own right.”

Destiny confessed that she was not the most obvious choice to play Shields.

“One of the first questions she asked is if I have ever been in a fight before, and I told her, ‘I am so sorry, no.’ And that definitely scared her a little bit. But I was like, ‘I got you. I promise I’m going to train crazy to make it look like I’ve been in a fight before, I swear.’” 

SCREENING OF THE DAY

Oscar winner Errol Morris (The Fog of War”) confronts one of the darkest chapters in recent American history – family separations – in “Separated,” which is based on NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book. Morris merges “bombshell” interviews with government officials and narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Morris seeks to show that U.S. government’s policies that have kept more than 1,300 children separated from their families even years later is nothing short of cruelty. 6:30 p.m. at the AMC 9+10. The film will then be nationally broadcast Dec. 7 on MSNBC.

FRODO THE MINE-SWEEPING DOG

“Porcelain Wars,” a documentary that shows three Ukrainian artists who defiantly defend their culture and their country amid the destruction of the Russian invasion, features a dog named Frodo who goes with them everywhere to find mines in the forest. In a war waged by professional soldiers against ordinary civilians, these artists choose to stay behind, armed with their art, their cameras and, for the first time in their lives, their guns. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (including a post-film conversation with co-director Slava Leontyev) at the AMC 9+10.

THIS JUST IN

When Denver Film announced a screening of Adrian Brody’s 3½-hour epic “The Brutalist,” captured entirely on 35mm film, it almost instantly sold out. So a second screening has just been added for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Sie Film Center. It’s about an accomplished Hungarian Jewish architect and World War II survivor who reconstructs his life in America. 

HOW TO SPEND YOUR ELECTION NIGHT

How about a 75th anniversary election night special screening of “All the King’s Men”? This bombshell Oscar-winning best film showed the rise and fall of a corrupt politician (Broderick Crawford) who makes his friends richer by creating the illusion of populist appeal. 6:15 p.m. Tuesday at the Sie FilmCenter.

TITLE OF THE DAY

“Grand Theft Hamlet,” the darling documentary of the recent South by Southwest Film Festival, follows the funny and moving journey of two struggling theater actors staging a full production of “Hamlet” within the online world of Grand Theft Auto. 7:30 p.m. at the AMC 9+10.

INFORMATION AND TICKETS

Go to denverfilm.org

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