Extracted from an article by Reka Jellema June 2001 Holland Sentinel Online   Unforgettable in every way ....

That describes the experience actors Scott Baio and Kristin Minter said they had while filming "The Bread, My Sweet," one of 19 feature films scheduled to screen as part of the third annual Waterfront Film Festival that opens tonight in Saugatuck. "I think (making this movie) was the best experience I've ever had," Minter said of the family atmosphere that prevailed while the film was being shot in Pittsburgh.

It also describes writer-director Melissa Martin's bittersweet movie, which features as its heroine Bella, an infinitely memorable Italian-American wife and mother. The film is based on the real-life friendship between Martin, her husband Larry, and the elderly couple who lived in a three-room apartment above Larry's bakery in Pittsburgh.

It stars Baio as Dom, an Italian-American baker and corporate vice president, who along with his two brothers befriends Bella and her husband, Massimo. Bella dreams of having an American wedding for her daughter Lucca (Minter). Only Lucca's not really the marrying type. When Dom learns that Bella has six months to live, he decides to make her dream of her daughter's wedding come true by proposing marriage to the young woman.

Martin made the movie as "a monument" to her friend, Gemma, who died of cancer four years ago. "She was a little energy burst who had emigrated from Italy and then lived for 40 years in the same three rooms over my husband's bakery," Martin recalled in a telephone interview from her Pittsburgh home.

In her director's notes she wrote, "Gemma never learned to drive a car, she spoke broken English, I don't know if she even completed high school, but she touched so many lives that when she died her funeral procession closed down one of Pittsburgh's main thoroughfares." Among those who turned out to honor Gemma were ditch diggers and congressmen, plumbers and neurosurgeons, Martin, a playwright and theater director said. "She's influenced so many people and touched so many people's lives. She also had this real enthusiasm for life that was infectious."

In telling Gemma's story, Martin gathered what she considered to be a dreamy cast and crew. "I ended up with the greatest group of actors anyone could ever ask for," the first-time filmmaker said of the close-knit ensemble cast.

"We all became like immediate friends," Kristin Minter said of her co-workers on the film. When the actress -- best-known for her role as the brazen clerk Randi on TV's "ER" -- arrived in Pittsburgh, she was embraced by the women in the cast. "We just bonded together. We sat in my room and smoked cigarettes and drank wine until 2 o'clock in the morning," she said.

Relating to actors Shuler Hensley and Billy Mott, who play Dom's brothers, was a sinful amount of fun, Scott Baio confessed. And the New York born and bred actor felt right at home on the streets of Pittsburgh. "Melissa put people together who genuinely liked each other. We immediately hit it off, became friends and hung out together every day," Baio said. "To her credit, she just got out of the way and let us go. She just instantly knew when to leave us alone and trust that whatever happened off-camera would show up on film."

"They're beautiful human beings," Minter said of Martin, Baio, Larry, producer Adrienne Wehr, and Gemma's family. "I'm so glad I got to meet and be around people like them -- it was like a gift." She also got to eat well. "We had chocolate croissants, biscotti, bread, and these amazing homemade Italian meals," Minter recalled. "But no one got fat."

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