Sydney low-budget flick The Devil’s 6 Commandments has secured both Australian and US distribution deals.
The $30,000 film, written and directed by Dicky Tanuwidjaya, has been released by US distributor R-Squared Films (which specialises in independent genre projects) in North America for both DVD and VOD.
“It’s harder than getting the film made,” Tanuwidjaya says of his struggle to get distribution.
“My first attempt was to contact distributors that distribute films in the $5-20 million-budget range. And I learned a humbling lesson when the first question that 90 per cent of them asked was ‘Who’s in it?’.”
The first-time feature film director/producer – who spent $20,000 on production and $10,000 on insurance, legal paperwork, deliverables and marketing – then compiled a list of distributors that had acquired films with a budget of less than $1 million.
“I contacted them, and sent them screeners and marketing documents. The reaction I got was mostly positive. Distributors like filmmakers who know a thing or two about film marketing.”
In Australia, Shock Entertainment will distribute the action/thriller/dark-comedy film.
The Devil’s 6 Commandments, which screened at Sydney's Chauvel Cinema last year, portrays six revenge stories intertwining one another. Rather than using ‘chapters’, the director used ‘commandments’. Each commandment has its own story.
“I’m proud of the fact that there are a few things in The Devil’s 6 Commandments that most critics and audiences hadn’t seen in any other films before – like the opening credits, the insert cuts, the very unorthodox revenge method, etc,” Tanuwidjaya says.
“All the scripts that I write are personal, but I always use metaphors, exaggerations and most importantly I add plenty of entertainment layers on top, so the target audience will be able to enjoy the film.
“I want to share a personal story in a way that the audience can enjoy.”
The film tells the story of Nina, who is on the verge of committing suicide after being brutally raped by thugs. She is persuaded by Ares, her psychotic stepbrother to track down the thugs and torture them. During their revenge mission, Nina and Ares encounter Trevor Moretti, a rogue cop who helps their cause, Albert Pike, a homophobic multimillionaire, and Freddie Ramone, a priest with a dark past.
The young up-and-coming filmmaker is now hard at work in raising finance on his second feature: Bloodlines. The film, which the director describes as “Scarface meets Miller's Crossing”, has actors Michael Madsen (Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs) and Luke Goss (Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Blade II) attached.
The crime/action/thriller, penned by Andrei Serban with additional material from Tanuwidjaya, is about a youngster who teams up with a cunning crooked cop to take over the underworld. If funding goes ahead, it will be shot in Sydney in the latter half of 2012.
The Devil’s 6 Commandments is available in the US through R-Squared Films and was released today in Australia by Shock Entertainment. To view the trailer, click here.