A Film by Joseph Holder
One Concert. One Night. One Life Changed Forever.
Written & Produced by Joseph Holder · Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki
The Story
It is the summer of 1969 in Berkeley, California. At a dusty record shop called Spin City Records, seventeen-year-old Marcus Johnson — a sharp, gifted guitarist from Oakland — reaches for Cloud Nine. Lily Sanders, a free-spirited cop's daughter with a poet's eye and a Rolling Stones obsession, reaches for Let It Bleed beside him. They trade albums. They trade something else, too.
What begins as a challenge — a week to prove whose taste runs deeper — becomes the most urgent love story either has ever known. Marcus performs original music at Oakland jazz cafés. Lily fills notebooks with poems that see the world plainly. Together they dare to believe that the idealism of 1969 might make a place for them.
It will not. Their families push back. The world pushes harder. And on December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Free Concert — meant to be a celebration, a capstone, the dream made real — racial hatred unmasked in the crowd turns fatal, and an era ends the only way eras ever truly end: in blood.
"Promise me we won't let them break this."
— Lily Sanders, from the screenplayOfficial Trailer
Principal Characters
A Black teenager from Oakland — sharp, gifted on guitar, working at a jazz café and writing original songs. Cool under pressure, carrying the weight of a father's warnings about fighting for your place in the world. He loves Lily without reservation, even as the world makes that love cost him everything.
A white cop's daughter with a poet's eye and a rebel's heart. She wears Lennon glasses and a suede fringe vest and fills notebooks with verses about a world she's trying to believe in. After Altamont, she boards a Greyhound bus with Marcus's denim jacket clutched to her chest, and doesn't look back.
Marcus's best friend — pragmatic, protective, and clear-eyed about what this world does to Black men. He warns Marcus early: "The world don't care if you love her." After Altamont, he stops singing about change and walks through the doors of the Black Panthers instead.
Lily's best friend — warm, funny, and enchanted by the counterculture dream. She first brings Lily to Marcus's jazz café, setting everything in motion. She is at Altamont when the dream ends, and is frozen by what she sees.
A strong-willed woman bone-tired from her shifts, who sees the shape of things before Marcus does. She doesn't forbid his love — but she asks, quietly and seriously, if he's ready for what comes with it. After Altamont, she cannot look at Lily at the graveside.
A police officer whose quiet authority becomes explicit prejudice when he learns who his daughter loves. His command — "You are not to see him again" — drives Lily to the streets and to Altamont. After Marcus is killed, she leaves his house for the last time and does not return.
The Script
The full feature screenplay by Joseph Holder — 83 pages, expanded with nine new scenes including the police pullover, Lily visiting Marcus's neighborhood, the mother's kitchen confrontation, the morgue identification, and Lily's creative transformation on the Greyhound bus.
Opens in Spin City Records, Berkeley, summer 1969. Ends on a Greyhound bus at sunset, a girl writing resurrection into a notebook.
Historical Note
On December 6, 1969, eighteen-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed by Hells Angels member Alan Passaro at the Altamont Free Concert. Passaro was acquitted on grounds of self-defense in 1971, despite film evidence of the killing. Marcus Johnson is a fictional character created in his memory — and in the memory of every young Black man whose story was filed away and forgotten.
Original Soundtrack
22 tracks drawn directly from the screenplay — every song placed by scene, from "The Sound of Silence" over the opening wreckage to Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" carrying Lily out of California on the final bus.
Project Materials
The complete expanded feature screenplay by Joseph Holder. PDF and DOCX available for download. Read online or offline.
The official teaser trailer for ALTAMONT. Watch on the dedicated trailer page or stream directly on YouTube.
22 era-defining tracks with scene placements and an embedded Spotify playlist. Every song drawn directly from the script.
Complete production pitch for producers, investors, and studio executives. Vision, tone, market analysis, comparables, and budget overview.
Official press release with full project and production details, talent information, and media contact for distribution use.
Consolidated materials hub for industry professionals. All assets in one place — confidential, industry use only.
Context & Comparables
ALTAMONT is positioned in the prestige drama market alongside films that use intimate, personal stories to illuminate American history with moral weight and cinematic beauty. It is not a documentary. It is not a biopic. It is a love story that happens to be set at the moment America's counterculture dream consumed itself.
The real Altamont concert — the Rolling Stones' free show at a California speedway on December 6, 1969 — drew 300,000 people and ended with four deaths. Eighteen-year-old Meredith Hunter was killed by a Hells Angel member. Passaro was acquitted in 1971. Hunter has never been fully memorialized.
This film is for him. For all of them. And for every love story the world decided it didn't have room for.
"On December 6, 1969, eighteen-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed by Hells Angels member Alan Passaro at the Altamont Free Concert." Passaro was acquitted on grounds of self-defense in 1971, despite film evidence of the killing. His death marked the violent end of the 1960s counterculture dream. He has never been fully memorialized.
Contact
For all inquiries regarding production, financing, talent attachment, distribution, licensing, or any aspect of the ALTAMONT project, please reach out directly to Joseph Holder. All materials shared are strictly confidential and intended for industry use only.
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