Lights. Camera. Tampa. Our beautiful city is the backdrop of a brand new indie film starring prolific comedian and character actor Will Sasso, and the marvelous Justina Machado (who you may remember from One Day at a Time). Titled The Throwback, this film marks the directorial debut of Mario Garcia. It will premier at the Tampa Theatre on May 3.
The film follows a married couple (Machado and Sasso) in full-blown midlife crisis who are thrown into further turmoil when the wife (Machado), an underappreciated and stressed ‘supermom,’ suffers a post-traumatic breakdown during the holiday season, causing her to regress to her 19-year-old college party-girl self.
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Garcia wrote the script and produced it through his company Garcia Interactive, alongside Michael A. Alfieri of Miantri Films and Doug Fox. Machado and Sasso’s longtime manager, Danielle Del, will exec produce alongside Machado and Sterling Macer Jr.
The Throwback also features a talented cast including Bobby Lee (And Just Like That…), Gregg Sulkin (Marvel’s Runaways), Michell Randolph (1923), and St. Petersburg resident Rhonda Shear (USA’s Up All Night).
Film industry generates billions of dollars every year
The film and television industry supports a dynamic U.S. creative economy, employing people in every state, and across a diversity of skills and trades. In all, 2.2 million people—from special effects technicians to makeup artists to writers to set builders to ticket takers and more—work in jobs supported by the industry, which pays over $192 billion in wages annually, according to the Motion Pictures Association (MPA).
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According to the MPA, the industry pays out $27 billion per year to more than 359,000 businesses in cities and small towns across the country, and the industry itself is comprised of more than 110,000 businesses. Roughly 89 percent of those businesses employ fewer than 10 people. As much as $250,000 can be injected into local economies per day when a film shoots on location, according to MPA’s research.
TV series have become a major economic boon for cities across the country. A recent report from Missoulian notes that a single season of the hit television series Yellowstone starring Kevin Costner and filmed in and around Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley, brought in over $70 million in additional spending to Montana.
TV productions bring permanent jobs to small towns across the US
The research was conducted by the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. The Paramount Network decided in 2020 to move the show’s filming to Montana to take advantage of a new $10 million film tax credit made available by the Montana Legislature.
According to the study, during five months of filming in western Montana, the production added 527 permanent jobs in the state, not including the 624 Montana residents who found jobs as extras on set and made a combined total of about $300,000.
Keep an out on Film Tampa Bay to see if any potential casting calls go out for The Throwback when it’s in town.
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