Atlanta-based director Ken Feinberg and LA-based screenwriter Lloyd J. Schwartz are steadily winning awards for their independent rom-com shot in the Peach State
By Carol Badaracco Padgett
Festivals are dicey for independent filmmakers. You really can’t tell which films will “hit.” One day you’re waiting to hear something and the next you could be celebrating.
Today, Atlanta-based acting coach Ken Feinberg of Atlanta Creative Studios—the director of independent romantic comedy “Love and Taxes” —is doing the latter.
A packed house at the historic Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta, Georgia, screened “Love and Taxes” on Aug. 2, 2025, as part of the Cobb International Film Festival (CIFF). And two days later, Feinberg reports, “We were honored with four awards last night: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Director.”
“Love and Taxes” stars Jake Reiner (Rob Reiner’s son) as Donald, an ambitious accountant, and LA-based actress Alexis Abrams as Belinda, his free-spirited waitress client. During the course of the film, the pair meet once a year, spar, meet again, spar and repeat till love finally draws them together.
Leading up to the 2025 wins at CIFF, the feature-length film won Best Comedy at the UK Film Awards in December 2024. Abrams also was honored as Best Actress at the 2024 Myrtle Beach International Film Festival (MBIFF) in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the Love International Film Festival in LA. Reiner was also honored with Best Actor in a Comedy at MBIFF.
When it comes to the steady recognition his film is receiving, Feinberg observes, “Every time, you have no idea who’ll like the film and who won’t. I’ve won several awards and I’ve always been surprised.”
As Feinberg’s latest, “Love and Taxes” has incredible elements that haven’t been lost on film festival juries. One of them is veteran screenwriter Lloyd J. Schwartz, known for generating classic comedy in the 1970s—”The Brady Bunch,” “Love American Style,” “Happy Days,” “Laverne and Shirley,” “The Love Boat,” “Baywatch,” and a long list of others. Schwartz’s father, Sherwood Schwartz, wrote the TV hit “Gilligan’s Island” back in the ‘60s, and as a budding screenwriter, young Lloyd Schwartz contributed an episode then.
More than 50 years later, how did Feinberg and Lloyd Schwartz pair up for “Love and Taxes”?
“I’ve known Lloyd for a long time and he’d offered the project in the past, saying here’s a script for a film, but I couldn’t afford even a low-budget project then. It’s tough when you’re an independent filmmaker,” Feinberg states.
Yet, Schwartz’s incredible writing drew Feinberg to examine the script more closely during the lull of the writers and actors strike–and helped greenlight the film. “Lloyd has such a talent for character development, and I loved the arc of the story which happens over the course of six years—six years in about an hour and a half,” Feinberg says.
“We had over 12,000 actors submit to audition for the two lead roles,” Feinberg describes of the casting process. “Out of those, we selected 450 actors to audition, and we called back 40 of them. In the end, Alexis and Jake had the magic.”
“The idea of shooting each scene in one take would take the audience through the nuances of the moment,” he describes. And to stay on-budget, the entire film had to be shot in just three days. The producer who embraced Feinberg’s industrious production vision was J. Marie, a longtime collaborator with Feinberg and a self-described Atlanta transplant from LA.
“The work was so fun,” Feinberg notes. “We just dove in, and we had an incredible cast and crew. We also had an incredible DP and sound department who were able to work expertly around the moving actors and not get in the way.”
The cast and all-Atlanta crew did much of their work on “Love and Taxes” during the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike in 2023 on a SAG micro budget, according to Feinberg. The location selected was a 1970’s-looking front section at an Atlanta prop shop, which served as Donald’s accounting office.
Early on after post production, viewers of the film began to take notice. Atlanta stand-up comedian Jerry Farber, for one, said “Love and Taxes” reminded him of early Woody Allen films. And Rob Reiner reported, “I’m not just saying this because my son is Jake … but ‘Love and Taxes’ is totally unique. It’s so hard to find a new way to make a romantic comedy, but [they have] done it.”
Describing the stars’ performances during the challenging three-day shoot, Feinberg says, “I told Alexis and Jake where I wanted them to be, and they moved through it. It allowed them to live the moment as their characters instead of worrying about the blocking.”
Abrams adds, “Being physically on-set in the space in one take was a challenge, plus coming into each new scene with an entire year of life happening since the last meeting, and there was so much riding on those meetings. We rehearsed over Zoom before shooting, and then we were responsible for the once-a-year meetings.”
Fortunately, Abrams notes, Reiner brought a strong natural ability to handle the blocking, while she was boss at the lines.
“It was funny. We had each other’s backs. We had to prep, get the blocking, and then they had to shoot each of these encounters in one take,” she adds. “Ken is amazing … during the rehearsal process he was delving into the lives of the characters and acknowledging what they’re going through, and how the past year was affecting them today.”
“In addition to the blocking,” Feinberg adds, “both Alexis and Jake delivered the emotion of their characters.”
Judging by the response of domestic and international film festivals so far, Abrams and Reiner absolutely delivered, along with the entire cast and crew.
Find out more about “Love and Taxes” here, and check out its latest screening news.