Press release from Transmission Films
Ahead of its Australian cinema release by Transmission Films and Paramount Pictures on May 5, the new Australian feature film MAD BASTARDS is off to a cracking start to 2011 with a sell-out World Premiere at the Sydney Festival on January 18, a major US sale just announced and official selection in the Sundance Film Festival.
MAD BASTARDS, filmed on location in the Kimberleys and Perth, is directed by Brendan Fletcher and produced by Fletcher along with David Jowsey and the legendary Broome musicians Alan Pigram and Stephen Pigram.
The Pigram Brothers, with singer/songwriter Alex Lloyd (Amazing) who also features in the film, will perform music from MAD BASTARDS at the World Premiere screening next Tuesday evening at the Sydney Festival where they will be joined by cast members Dean Daley-Jones, Lucas Yeeda, Greg Tait, Ngaire Pigram and Douglas Macale who are flying in from the Kimberleys to be at the event.
They fly out immediately following to the US where the film will complete in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the section which last year was won by Animal Kingdom.
The Sundance screenings will launch MAD BASTARDS in the U.S. where international sales agent Entertainment One (eOne) has sold all U.S. rights to Sundance Selects. Sundance Selects has chosen MAD BASTARDS to be one of just five films from the Festival participating in the “Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” initiative. The five films will simultaneously begin screening on video-on-demand at the same time as they premiere at the Festival in Park City, Utah.
A theatrical release in the US for MAD BASTARDS is anticipated later this year. The deal with Sundance Selects is for all rights, including theatrical, digital and home video.
Richard Payten, Managing Director of Transmission Films, said: "This is such a unique and original film that I am not at all surprised that it has been selected for Sundance and has already sold out at the Sydney Festival. As a distributor we are always on the look-out for ground-breaking films and MAD BASTARDS certainly fits the bill."
MAD BASTARDS follows the life of TJ (Deal Daley-Jones) a hard-edged Aboriginal man and his estranged 13-year-old son Bullet (Lucas Yeeda). After being turned away from his mother’s house, TJ sets off across the country to the Kimberly region of northwestern Australia to make things right with his son. Bullet’s grandfather, Tex (Greg Tait), has lived a tough life, and now, as a local cop, he wants to change things for the men in his community. Crosscutting between three generations, the film is a raw look at the journey to becoming a man and the personal transformation one must make.
MAD BASTARDS draws from the rich tradition of storytelling inherent in Indigenous life. The screenwriting credit is shared by Fletcher with Dean Daley-Jones, Greg Tait and Johnny Watson – the three men with no previous acting experience who play the key male roles. The characters are based on the actors’ own lives, bringing a tremendous intimacy and freshness to the film. Using music from legendary Broome musicians The Pigram Brothers, Fletcher (who wrote and directed) poetically fuses the harsh realities of violence, healing, and family.
MAD BASTARDS was produced with the financial assistance of Screen Australia, ScreenWest, Screen NSW and Fulcrum Media Finance.