The only thing better than love is love the second time around.

For film director Tom Anton that has certainly been the case.

Anton has always wanted to make films. It just took him 40 years and a rekindled affair with a childhood girlfriend to give him the passion, perseverance and the perfect story line.

Anton's new film, "At Last," is a true story of two people reunited after more than two decades apart.

		"At Last" will be screened at the Regent Square Theater Tuesday 9:15 p.m. and Wednesday at 8 p.m. Anton is scheduled to appear.

Set in New Orleans in the 1970s, the film, through the wonderful cinematography of Roberto Schaefer ("Finding Neverland," "Monster's Ball"), captures the beauty and essence of the Crescent City before Hurricane Katrina irrevocably altered its landscape. Locations like Old Metarie, French Quarter, Jackson Square, Garden District and the Southern Yacht Club are central in the film. John Boutte's "Foot of Canal Street," Dr. John's "Creole Moon," Professor Longhair's "Hey Now Baby" and other songs provide the perfect soundtrack for the many styles of music that have become indigenous to New Orleans.

Co-written and directed by Anton and his wife, Sandi Russell, the film's central characters are Kelly Lynch, Martin Donovan and Brooke Adams.

"I've always wanted to do films since I was a kid," said the 52-year-old Anton by phone from Shreveport, La. "It was a dream, and I never did it. But when I hit my mid-life crisis about 12 years ago, I told my ex-wife that I was going to sell my business and start making movies, and she said, 'no.' This was after putting her through 16 years of graduate school. I said, 'This is something that I have to do. I've helped you through your dream and now it's time for me to pursue my dream.' "

The story is based on Anton's life. As a young boy, he moved with his family from Detroit to New Orleans, where he attended high school.

After graduating from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge with a degree in business and finance, he moved to Mansfield, La., started a family and worked in the energy industry for 18 years as an environmentalist.

"I had my own company, and because of that it enabled me the freedom to attend different seminars in New York and Los Angeles," he said. "It was my little creative outlet. I wrote a dozen or so screenplays, but I never showed them to anyone, and I still haven't."

When his marriage with his first wife began to dissolve, Anton said, he received an old box of stuff from his mother that included letters from his first girlfriend in Grosse Pointe, Mich.

"When our story started unfolding, one of the things that I had learned by attending seminars was that your very first project to direct and produce should be something you know and are passionate about. So we decided to do this screenplay first. I sold my business 12 years ago, and I have been researching the independent film market. Because I was a businessman I wanted this to be a good business opportunity for people that were going to give me money. We made the film and since then we have formed a production company called River Dream Productions, which is based in New Orleans and Shreveport. This was a dream."