In the 1980s, the Starck Club attracted the rich and famous from around the world to Dallas. Grace Jones performed opening night and everyone from Prince to Madonna passed through its doors. In Art&Seek’s continuing series looking at significant arts events in 2013, we preview a new documentary about the club.

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Michael Cain says he first got the idea to make a movie about the Starck Club while at the Starck Club. It was 1986, and all the rest of the world knew of Dallas it learned from the TV show.

But those who hung out at the Starck Club saw a different side of the city.

They knew a place where on any give night, New Order might perform. Where unisex bathrooms encouraged mingling. And where Ecstasy, which was legal at the time, was rampant.

“It was a place that protected those who thought differently. Who were exploring their sexuality or exploring their artistic side,” Cain says while seated in the room where the film’s being edited. “And it became this beacon for that sort of community around the world.”

Cain and co-director Miles Hargrove have been working on the film for a few years. They’ve interviewed more than 120 people, including the club’s designer, Phillipe Starck. Regular visitors still vividly recall that first trip to nightlife nirvana.

The heydays of other famous clubs like Studio 54 have been well documented. And Hargrove says he’s glad to help finally immortalize the Starck Club.

“What’s so great about this project is that it’s showing that this remarkable period in time happened here in Dallas, Texas, and most people – other than this relatively small group of people that experienced it – don’t know that. And they’re just shocked to find out it happened here,” Hargrove says. “People go wow – Dallas really had this amazingly cool thing happening here.”

The film doesn’t have a title yet, but its directors expect a Dallas premiere this spring.