Cinedigm has snapped up North American rights to Country Gold, a surrealist country music film from director Mickey Reece (Alien, Climate of the Hunter).
Reece co-wrote Country Gold with John Selvidge and plays the lead, the up-and-coming country music star Troyal Brux. The offbeat comedy follows a fateful evening in 1994 when Troyal meets up with country legend George Jones (Ben Hall).
Together, they embark on a wild night in Nashville, the eve before George plans to cryogenically freeze himself, according to a report on www.hollywoodreporter.com.
Reece describes the film as a surreal satire on American celebrity culture. “I wanted to explore a seminal moment in American music history,” said Reece. “Not to belabor the facts, but to rather play with some icons of this particular era and let their vibes take the audience to surprising places.”
Country Gold is Reece’s follow-up to 2017’s Alien, a reimagining of the early years of Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s marriage, starring Jacob Ryan Snovel as Elvis and Cate Jones as Priscilla Presley.
Country Gold did the festival tour last year, screening at the Fantastic Fest and the Glasgow Film Festival.
Cinedigm is planning a limited theatrical release for Country Gold before putting it out on its indie film streaming platform Fandor.
“If it wasn’t obvious by now, the Fandor team loves unique, left-field comedies like Country Gold,” said Aaron Hillis, director of programming for Cinedigm. “I may be more of a rock-and-roll guy but having followed Mickey Reece’s undeniably inventive career for a few years, I’ll go full honkytonk for whatever he cooks up.”
Kassie Gann produced Country Gold in association with executive producers Peter Kuplowsky, a programmer for the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section, and Zac Locke for The Straits. Locke negotiated the deal for the film with Cinedigm’s director of acquisitions Brandon Hill.
