Transcendent’s Deadline is a film that goes by quickly but has much to say while it does. Its smoothly flowing 95 minutes are easy to follow, but the movie doesn’t condescend: it simply respects an audience’s ability to understand by not beating points into the ground.

The picture ably notes Southern faults and uniqueness while also acknowledging our strengths and shared humanity. Perhaps that’s because the film and the novel “Grievances” that inspired it come from the minds and efforts of people who’ve lived in the South, or because those involved know how to tell a cinematic story; most likely it’s a combination of both.

It started at a 40th high school reunion, though Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire is no ordinary high school. This private boarding school has churned out alumni like U.S. President Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant Jr. and famed novelist Booth Tarkington.

Pulitzer Prize-winning alumnus Mark Ethridge was the speaker at that reunion, talking about a novel he had written. The book, "Grievances", was based on stories he wrote about a racially motivated killing in South Carolina while Ethridge was a reporter at The Charlotte Observer.

You're unlikely to find a filmmaker with a more positive outlook on the month of February than Curt Hahn. In a season that's something like Hollywood's remainder shelf, Hahn sees opportunity — a chance to release his new film, Deadline, without competition from end-of-the-year awards bait or summer blockbusters. When Deadline premieres at Regal's Green Hills 16 on Wednesday, Feb. 15, it faces only the fiercest competition Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider sequel can muster.

"In any industry, you'll have a place where there's good fishing, so everybody congregates in that area and competition gets more and more fierce," Hahn says, echoing the central metaphor of W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne's business guide Blue Ocean Strategy. "You want to do something truly unique? You have to sail off into a blue ocean."

Releasing a movie during the film industry's offseason isn't the only way Hahn is breaking the mold.

Nashville based film company – Transcendent, LLC, a subsidiary of Film House, produced Deadline, which was filmed exclusively in Nashville and the greater Nashville area. What better way to top off this Nashville labor of love than to add the music of Dave Perkins. Perkins will perform the soundtrack music at a special live event at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville, Sunday, February 12.

Dave is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter and guitarist that grew up in a musical family. With a singing mother and father who tickled the ivories, Dave was destined to nurture his music soul. In a 2009 interview, he shares, “I heard rock ‘n’ roll and I was a goner, it caught my rebellious spirit. One of the big turning points for me…I had become a real folk music consumer. In 1965, I bought an Elektra compilation called Folk Songs ’65 and I was totally unprepared for cut one, side two, which was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band playing “Born In Chicago.” I heard that harmonica…that was probably the most life-changing moment, musically, that I can recall.”