A faded one-hit wonder confronts the haunting truth behind his only hit song when the daughter of a lost love reappears with the past in her hands.

Director Biography - Todd Hartsell

Todd Hartsell is a filmmaker and musician from Texas whose creative life began in childhood with a piano and a Super 8 camera. His early short, The Sixth Commandment, went on to win top directing and filmmaking honors, but Todd’s path eventually led into television and digital media, where he produced award-winning commercial and broadcast work for companies including Yahoo! and Nexstar Broadcasting.

Decades later—after a career, a daughter, two bands, a podcast or two, and a lot of life lived—Todd returned to filmmaking with renewed purpose. Partnering with longtime friend and collaborator Jeff LaGrone, he co-founded Poor Polly Productions and is currently developing the feature film Jester. His films focus on the people life tends to pass by–characters longing to be known, understood and seen for who they truly are.

Director Statement

The idea for Sundown began while I was reading Deliver Me from Nowhere, Warren Zanes’ book about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. There’s a moment where Bruce reflects on how people often diminish a one-hit wonder—rarely considering just how hard it is to even have one hit. That thought stuck with me, and when I shared it with Jeff LaGrone, it sparked a conversation that became the seed of this story.

From that seed, Jack Holloway was born: a man defined and haunted by his one success, endlessly circling the song that gave him everything—and took nearly as much. Together, Jeff and I began to imagine Jack now, decades later, touring dive bars, mostly forgotten—except by one woman: Brandi, the daughter of someone Jack once loved and let down. Her appearance, and the cassette she brings, force Jack to confront what the song “Sundown” actually meant—to her mother, and to himself.

When I wrote the song “Sundown,” I kept it intentionally simple—basic chord structures that reflected Jack’s plainspoken style, allowing his lyrics to carry the weight he rarely gives voice to in everyday life. But I imagined that someone in a studio—chasing a sound—had produced it with the grandeur of a Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb record: lush, orchestrated, and polished in a way Jack never imagined. That contrast—the sparse, aching core of the song buried beneath studio gloss—mirrors Jack’s own life. There’s truth in the bones of the song, if you can hear past the polish.

“Sundown” isn’t about a breakup in the traditional sense. It’s about emotional failure. About leaving not because you stopped loving someone, but because you couldn’t bear to be loved by them once they saw you clearly. That ache—of being the furthest from someone at the moment you should be closest—was the soul of the song, and the film.