You never know who will show up at your movie premiere.
Gene B. Hale III, co-producer and location manager for Cocoa, was reunited with his 3rd grade teacher during the film’s east coast screening on Saturday.
“She was fantastic!” Hale recounted after a warm hug with “Miss Chalfant” — now Gabrielle Chalfant Meyer — in the Chatham Hickory Cinema. She surprised him during the question and answer session.
Meyer, now retired from teaching, remembered Hale as “an adorable, fun kid” at the Woodland School in Morris Township.
She came to Saturday’s screening with her mom, Gail Chalfant, who had a small but violent bit part in Cocoa. (Gail and her “Bingo Babes” pummel a suspected stalker with their handbags outside Morristown’s Masonic lodge.)
Shot largely in Greater Morristown in late 2021, Cocoa is a comedy caper about down-on-their-luck sisters who invent a chocolate cake that spurs weight loss.
Video: Trailer for ‘Cocoa’:
Hale (Morristown High ’97) has a cameo in the film, and thanks to him, so does the Rev. Anne Thatcher, rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, where several scenes were filmed.
When she balked at playing a pastor — “I’m always a pastor!” — the production people offered her the role of a philanthropist’s wife. Freemason Brian Mandel of Morris Township donned the clerical robes.
“I’ve done theater work but never film work, so to be a part of your dream, and to work on a team with everyone, was just such a fantastic experience,” Thatcher told Jody Mortara and her cast and crew on Saturday.
Slideshow photos by Kevin Coughlin. Click/hover on images for captions:
Mortara, an actress from Los Angeles, wrote the script, raised the money, and co-starred and co-directed the film, among other responsibilities.
“It was really wonderful being here,” Jody Mortara said at the after-party at the Masonic lodge in Morristown. “I’m thinking, how can I move here?”
Hearing people laughing at her story’s punchlines during the screening was “awesome,” she said. “It was very humbling. It made me feel really good.” Mortara said she is exploring a series based on the film.
“Jody wrote a really nice script. It’s a fun little world she created for us to travel through,” said Tony Cucci, a Sopranos veteran who plays mobster “Carmine Frangiolini,” to sinister comedic effect, in Cocoa.
“I feel very blessed that Jody gave us this opportunity,” said Co-Director Joe Gawalis of Secaucus.
“It’s a tough business–almost impossible,” he said, proudly noting that Cocoa was completed with a small crew in a pandemic. It took less than a month to film, and a year to edit.
“You don’t get into this to be a millionaire. You have to love it,” Gawalis said. For him, the movie business is about making a “good honest living with people you love.”
Cocoa is streaming on Amazon Prime.
