Peter Taylor, a Charlotte photographer and filmmaker behind the Order/Fire series, has released the trailer for a new documentary film project he has been working on since 2017. (Editor’s note: Taylor is also a contributor to Unpretentious Palate.) The film, Verica 2.0, follows the journey of chef Paul Verica as he closes his Waxhaw restaurant Heritage Food + Drink to open The Stanley in the Charlotte neighborhood of Elizabeth and his quest to earn James Beard Award recognition for the new restaurant. The film runs about 40 minutes.

“Who closes a successful restaurant? That’s a great story,” Taylor says. “I knew building out a new restaurant comes with its own set of challenges and problems [as does] closing a restaurant, and I thought it’d be a great story to follow this man as he goes through all of these trials and tribulations and successes and problems and failures and everything else that goes along with it. I just thought it was a great human story.”

The film features beautiful food footage, but also captures emotional moments, such as Verica with his son and sous chef Alex on the last day of service at Heritage, and raw conversation. Taylor says Verica held little back in regards to what searching for success and validation cost him.

“When I wanted to do this movie with Paul, it wasn’t, ‘Let me show up for 10 minutes and film,’ this was a real commitment on his end too, to be more vulnerable and open and having me there for all of it — the good, the bad — and to talk about it,” Taylor says. “And he does. One of the things that he talks about is the sacrifice that comes with that, the sacrifice to your health, your personal life to everything.”

Taylor has submitted the film to several independent film festivals, and hopes that it will be accepted into the Charlotte Film Festival to have its premiere in the city it was filmed in. While the movie focuses on a chef, Taylor believes the message in it is relatable across professions — one of the things that made the story so compelling.

“It’s a universal struggle to achieve success, and how you define your success — it just happens to be about the restaurant industry,” Taylor says.

Watch the trailer for the film below.

 

 

 

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