Freestyle Acquires ‘My Friend Tommy,’ ‘Blood Scales’; Lifesize Lands ‘Distant Tales’; Scooter McCrae Wraps ‘Black Eyed Susan’; ‘Brave The Dark’ Trailer – Film Briefs

Matt Grobar
·4 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media has acquired U.S. rights to the comedic documentary My Friend Tommy, along with North American rights to Blood Scales, an award-winning French-English doc about animal trafficking. The former title will debut on digital October 24th, with the latter hitting the internet on the 31st.

'Blood Scales'
'Blood Scales'

Directed by Nem Stankovic, My Friend Tommy follows Thomas “Tommy” Lee, a sheltered 40-year-old virgin who embarks on a cross-continental journey with his best friend, former pro-ball player and comedian Nem, to learn basic adult skills in a crash course on the life he’s missed out on. Nora Stankovic, Nem Stankovic, and Lauren Wolkowski produced the film alongside EPs Nick Risher, Patrick Tsang, Oliver Mochizuki, Utsava Kasera, Rahil Khandker, Wilson Siu, G. Lam, Archit Joshi, Christopher Aw, Sin W. Lau, Mark N. Taaffe, Jessey Lee, and Cherie Chan.

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Directed by Paolo Sodi and produced by Alessio Bariviera, Blood Scales highlights the dire situation of the pangolin, commonly known as the scaly anteater — the world’s most illegally trafficked mammal. Pic won Best Foreign Film at the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival and the Silver Award at the Deauville Green Awards.

Freestyle negotiated the deal for My Friend Tommy with Scatena & Rosner Films and Tricoast Worldwide, doing the deal for Blood Scales with Sebastian Twardosz of Savant Artists. View the trailer for the latter title below.

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'Distant Tales' poster
'Distant Tales' poster

EXCLUSIVE: Lifesize Entertainment has acquired Distant Tales, a four-part dramatic anthology film written and directed by Shem Bitterman, for a two-month exclusive run with cable TV providers, including Xfinity, Spectrum, and Contour. Exec produced by Dead Poet’s Society Oscar winner Tom Schulman, the film shot in isolation during the Covid pandemic will become available on other internet, cable and satellite platforms starting December 1st.

In Distant Tales, four individual stories set during a worldwide pandemic unfold with unexpected twists and revelations: an extramarital affair, cut short by a pandemic and continued online; a mysterious job interview, overseen by an unseen judge; a vaccine trial, where a burgeoning love leads to some bad decisions; a grieving dad who finds sympathy from an online advocate for violence.

Featuring in the ensemble are Carolyn Michelle Smith, Amen Igbinosun, Liz Fenning, Chantal Nchako, Christopher Curry, Megan Gallagher, Alaska Jackson, Rupak Ginn, Tiffany Wolff, Samuel Martin Lewis, and Ben Bowen. Tony Minas, Christina Rencis, and MK Viakley produced under their banner Films With Friends, with David Roberson serving as associate producer. Check out a trailer for the project below.

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Yvonne Emilie Thälker in 'Black Eyed Susan'
Yvonne Emilie Thälker in Black Eyed Susan

EXCLUSIVE: Scooter McCrae, the cult underground filmmaker known for Shatter Dead and Sixteen Tongues, has wrapped production in New York on his third feature, Black Eyed Susan, which was one of the first projects to nab a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement amidst the strike.

A darkly erotic sci-fi pic shot on Super 16, the film follows Derek (Damian Maffei), who after finding himself desperate for work, accepts a job replacing his recently-deceased friend at a tech startup. Continuing to develop the company’s innovative project means working intimately with Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker), a bleeding-edge BDSM sex doll meant to receive and appreciate punishment as an integral part of her evolving AI. Derek will soon test the limits of his own desires and explore the nature of man and woman, pleasure and pain, and life and death in a morally uncertain future world.

The film set for release next year also stars Marc Romeo and ex-WWE star Scott Fowler. Italian composer Fabio Frizzi penned the score in his second collaboration with McCrae following 2015 short Saint Frankenstein. A co-production between Not the Funeral Home (The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs), Little Cannonballs, and the recently-launched Vinegar Syndrome Pictures (New York Ninja), it’s produced by Justin A. Martell (Subspecies V: Bloodrise), Aimee Kuge (the upcoming Cannibal Mukbang), Seager Dixon, and Maureen Costello.

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Jared Harris and Nicholas Hamilton in 'Brave the Dark'
Jared Harris and Nicholas Hamilton in Brave the Dark

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has an exclusive trailer for Brave the Dark, an indie drama starring Jared Harris (Chernobyl) and Nicholas Hamilton (Captain Fantastic) that world premieres at Heartland Film Festival October 6th.

Based on a true story, the film portrays the transformation of a 1980s small-town teacher as he is drawn into the mysterious past of a student suddenly arrested outside his classroom. Long sustained by a quiet belief that no student is a lost cause, Stan Deen (Harris) discovers the profound and direct impact he can have on another life. But as Stan attempts to figure out how the troubled and secretive Nate (Hamilton) wound up living alone in his car, without any family, their relationship will test his deepest convictions, becoming a life-changing journey through doubt and betrayal and towards trust and redemption.

Damian Harris directed from his script written with Dale G. Bradley, Lynn Robertson-Hay, Nathaniel Deen, and John P. Spencer. Presented by Aristos Films and Make/Films, in association with Triode Media, the film also stars Jamie Harris, Sasha Bhasin, Will Edward Price, and Kimberly Fairbanks. Grant Bradley, Derek Dienner, and Dale G. Bradley served as producers. View the trailer below.

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