Fantastic Fest 2010

Director Simon Rumley and Producer Bob Portal Live in Person!

Red White & Blue is a “slacker revenge movie” set in contemporary Austin, starring award winning actor Noah Taylor (Shine, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Vanilla Sky, The Year My Voice Broke, four-time winner of the Film Critic’s Circle of Australia Best Actor Award), Amanda Fuller (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bones, Women’s Murder Club) and award winning Marc Senter (Screamfest 2006 Best Actor Award for The Lost, Cabin Fever 2).

Red White & Blue is very much a production born out of the Austin movie scene. Simon Rumley met Executive Producer Tim League at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, where the director’s last feature, The Living and the Dead, won 5 awards – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Make-Up. At the Festival, League discussed the possibility of Rumley shooting a movie in Austin, and Rumley made an extended research trip in early 2009 to soak up more of the atmosphere of the “Live Music Capital of the World”, before honing the script that would become Red White & Blue.

An e-mail shout out to the Alamo’s loyal fanbase resulted in a hoard of extras and possible shooting locations being submitted by Austin residents. Using well-known local landmarks such as Emo’s, Cucarachas, The Broken Spoke and The Austin Diner, Simon has fashioned a realistic, dark revenge movie set in the heart of Linklater-land.

In Rumley’s tightly woven, darkly emotional tale, the lives of three young people – Erica, Franki and Nate – intertwine in a fateful, tragic way and head down a rocky and violent road to heart-rending oblivion.

Erica (Amanda Fuller) lives rent-free in the local co-op, but spends her nights trawling the bars and beds of Austin. Damaged, emotionally withdrawn, never really connecting with anyone, and sleeping with multiple men is just what she does… until she meets the older and mysterious Nate (Noah Taylor), working in a hardware store, but with an “honorable discharge” from Iraq.

Despite his quiet air of danger, Nate’s the only guy who doesn’t seem to want to get her into bed at the first opportunity, and the two form a hesitant bond. But one of Erica’s casual sexual encounters is about to bite back.

Franki (Marc Senter) is a young, hot-headed wannabe rock star trying to make it big. Looking after a sick mother and estranged from his longterm girlfriend, he “shared” Erica with his buddies one drunken evening. It takes a sudden shocking twist of fate to throw his already crazy world into a spin, and in Franki’s eyes there is only one person to blame…

An unashamedly tough and uncompromising movie, Red White & Blue is a fearlessly frank, gut-wrenching romance and a merciless exploration of the futility of violence. Like Rumley’s The Living and the Dead before it, the movie – with its casual nudity and scenes of extreme violence – is no doubt destined for controversy.