In the late 1990s, at the tail end of alternative rock’s heyday, UNLV film professor Brett Levner worked in the documentary unit at MTV. “I feel like there was still the grunge essence,” she recalls. “Or maybe I was finding it by watching movies like Singles and my favorite movie, Reality Bites. I was still wearing my Doc Martens and flannels and attracted to that world.”
Levner channels that spirit of the ’90s in her new feature film, Riot in Bloom, which combines nostalgia for the era with a showcase for its modern resurgence, via the story of a middle-aged woman reliving her youthful rebellion. On her 40th birthday, Rose (Reagan Pfifer) finds out that her husband has been cheating on her, a revelation that shakes up her entire life. She leaves her stultifying office job to work as a barista in a funky coffee shop, where she revives her grunge fashion sense and befriends her teenage trans co-worker, Holly (Kristina Hernandez).
Levner crafted the story with screenwriter and fellow UNLV professor Roudi Boroumand, drawing from their shared experiences. “We had both gone through a divorce previously,” Levner says. “We’re about the same age, and we were thinking we should write a script featuring a female in her 40s, who’s going through things that women that age go through.”
That personal artistic vision was then filtered through UNLV’s co-curricular project, in which production is incorporated into actual classes in the film department. Beginning in fall 2022, Levner spent three semesters working with students as her crew, from pre-production to post-production, in a process that ideally benefits both sides.
“It gives students an opportunity to really see what it’s like to work on a fully professional project,” UNLV film department chair Heather Addison says. “A film program is so much more than just the classes that it offers. It’s what’s happening outside of those classes as well.”
“It’s actually a great symbiotic relationship, because we get to make a film, and we get to use our resources at UNLV,” Levner says.
In this way, she is following in the footsteps of her UNLV predecessors David Schmoeller and the late Francisco Menendez, both of whom made feature films using the same model. “It’s important to keep the legacy going,” Levner says, “because the hallmarks of our program are these co-curricular projects where we are a film family, where we’re collaborating together.”
That collaboration extends to Vegas as a whole, whether it’s Public Works serving as the coffee shop where Rose finds renewed purpose, or GC Records owner Shahab Zargari offering Levner music from his label in place of the actual ’90s bands that were beyond her budget. “That saved us, because we wouldn’t have been able to afford even to get someone to do covers,” Levner says. “He hand-selected female-fronted bands that played in that genre of ’90s grunge.”
Levner has been at UNLV for 14 years, and Riot in Bloom is the second feature film she’s made locally, following 2016’s The Track. Like many people who initially planned to stay in Vegas for a brief period, she’s become an integral part of the community, as both a professor and a filmmaker. “I’m blown away by the spirit and the vision that she brings to UNLV film,” Addison says. Riot in Bloom is a key part of that.
