Stefan Nadelman left us hanging back in 2002. His 23 minute short film Terminal Bar (3 min excerpt) which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and picked up awards at many other international festivals ended with a “To Be Continued.”

I had the distinct pleasure of programming the world premiere of Terminal Bar at RESFEST, where it took our audience choice prize. The film is a portrait of a Port Authority adjacent bar, dubbed “roughest in New York,” and its patrons over the course of ten years as seen through the photographic lens of the bartender (Nadelman’s father). The film is a tour de force of editing, music and animation

“After trying to start a “legit” sequel a few times I realized there is no way I can capture the raw energy of the first film,” Nadelman told me via email. “Being that I only have my dad’s interview and those newspaper articles to draw from, I didn’t want to rely on the articles again. Also, a short film should be short. So the best thing to do is to not try to match something like the first, but instead do little vignettes from time to time until I’ve exhausted all the wonderful assets.”

Nadelman brought his talents for photo animation to enliven last year’s LeBron James doc More Than a Game and Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10.

What inspired Stefan to now revisit his story eight years later? “Well, the whole to-be-continued thing for Terminal Bar was long overdue.”