'This is My Long Island’

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There have been some bumps in the road, however, during this filmmaking journey. In the first week of November 2013, Marquardt lost a dear childhood friend of 32 years and one of the co-producers of the film, Dianne Zaremba, to an apparent suicide. A week later, on Nov. 12, 2013, as he was trying to press forward and preparing to screen the film, the Marquardt home caught fire and the family lost everything, including the film’s footage and all of his camera and editing equipment.

Friends, family and associates from all over Long Island came together to donate, hold fundraisers and assist the Marquardt family; one of them even donated a car for the family’s use. Though his camera and computer equipment have yet to be replaced, he was able to retrieve the raw edit file footage from his internal hard drive of the computer that was destroyed in the fire. Founder and owner of CR Computer, Marquardt’s cousin and co-producer, Robert Magioncalda, was able to recover the raw edit files from the burnt hard drive and saved Marquardt’s legacy that he had worked on so dearly for three and a half years.

“It was a rough ending to 2013,” Marquardt says, “but I kept going and we perservered. Good friends and family helped us to manage.”

Marquardt was the 2013 recipient of the Long Island Film/TV Foundation’s Finishing Fund Grant, and he proudly accepted the award at last year’s Long Island International Film Expo (LIIFE).

“Dan’s love of Long Island clearly shows through this film,” says Debra Markowitz, director of Nassau County’s Film Office, who is also executive director of the Long Island Film-TV Foundation. “It is an all-encompassing love song to Long Island.”

Marquardt has submitted his documentary to area film festivals and is hoping to be making the rounds of this summer’s festival circuit. In the meantime, while he is awaiting acceptance from the selection committee to screen at this year’s LIIFE (July 9-17 at the Bellmore Movies), the Long Island Film-TV Foundation decided to work with Marquardt on a red carpet cast, crew and press screening event at the Bellmore Movies to highlight his dedication to filmmaking and Long Island.

Marquardt has already screened his film for a very special audience — his grandfather.

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