On an August afternoon, actor Crispin Glover sits in a pew in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Iowa City. Down in the basement, a couple dozen extras dressed in period clothing are biding time playing cards and reading, while outside, an antique ice wagon sits on the corner of North Linn and Jefferson streets, closed to downtown traffic.
For the past few weeks, Iowa City has been at the heart of Death of a Brewer, a feature film dramatizing the fierce clash between immigrant brewers and Temperance Movement crusaders that shaped the community in the late 19th century.
Directed by Mokotsi Rukundo, a filmmaker from Iowa City, the period drama stars Mena Suvari (American Beauty), Crispin Glover (Back to the Future), Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) and Mount Vernon native Jefferson White (Yellowstone). But the production has also tapped into local talent: Dozens of Iowans have been darting in and out of scenes as extras, and some — like Iowa City West High graduate Ella Vakiner — are even pulling double duty behind the scenes.
“It's kind of a waiting game. When you're an actor, whenever they pull you, you go, then wait again,” Vakiner told IPR's Talk of Iowa, sitting patiently in full costume in the basement of the church during a filming day on Aug. 12. She'd spent her time that morning shuffling between wardrobe duty and stepping in front of the camera. “I'll be fixing suspenders, I'll be sewing a button on someone, then I'll go back into the scene and I'll sit and I'll do the actor thing. It's way crazier than I would have ever expected the film industry is.”
Vakiner called the project a full-circle moment. She first encountered Rukundo when he visited her high school years ago to talk about his work as a filmmaker. Now, she’s working on his set before heading to New York City to study musical theater.
“This is such an amazing thing, to have a professional thing on my resume before I even go to college,” she said.
The film is based on Beer Money: A Tale of the Iowa City Beer Mafia, a 2020 novel by North Liberty-based author S.C. “Steve” Sherman. Inspired by Iowa City’s brewing history, Sherman researched the underground caves where German, Bohemian and Irish immigrants once aged their lagers. The book was published just as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down public gatherings, canceling his string of book tours at Iowa breweries. But Sherman gave Rukundo a copy of his book while he was an extra on the director's first film, East of Middle West. A year later, Rukundo reached out again to Sherman, excited at the possibility of turning his book into a screenplay.
Sherman now serves as executive producer on the film alongside Doug Alberhasky, third-generation owner of John's Grocery in Iowa City.
Alberhasky has been leading tours of the beer caves that run beneath his store for years. For him, bringing this history to the big screen is personal.
“This is kind of my love letter to Iowa City,” he said. “I just want all of Iowa City to be proud of seeing their community showcased so amazingly on the big screen."
“This is kind of my love letter to Iowa City."Doug Alberhasky, owner of John’s Grocery
Sherman agrees. Though early pressure came from Los Angeles producers to shoot elsewhere, the team was determined to root the film in Iowa. Authenticity, he said, is their competitive advantage.
“When it comes right down to it, we're making a $10 million-plus movie for under $10 million, and it's because we don't have to come up with all of these amazing sets," Sherman said.
Some props, like the ice wagon, have even been loaned from the National Czech & Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids. Other sets include the Supreme Court chambers inside the Old Capitol, author Kurt Vonnegut's house and the Oakland Cemetery, home of the Black Angel.
“They weren't so much technically a 'mafia' in the sense of the Italian Mafia. They were incredibly successful businessmen and had built a way of life that [became] ... illegal overnight," Sherman said. "They did push the lines of right and wrong a little bit, as you can see in the book or the movie ... but I don't really look at them as a full-on mafia. They became friends because they were competitors ... but they sort of banded together because they were all coming under fire."
Filming in Iowa City is nearly complete, with the production moving on to Dubuque and Illinois soon. A full theatrical release of Death of a Brewer is scheduled for May 2026, with screenings on the film festival circuit and at craft breweries across the country.
“I think all of our community and all of our state is going to be so darn proud of what we've built here," Alberhasky said. "And it'll keep building.”
