TARO PR
RED ROVER is available on digital and on demand May 12th
STARRING Kristian Bruun, Cara Gee, Meghan Heffern,
Anna Hopkins, Morgan David Jones
After feeling he has nothing left to live for on earth, a lonely geologist tries to qualify for a one-way mission to Mars with the help of an offbeat musician who is just as lost as he is.
IndieCan Entertainment Inc. is excited to announce that Toronto-filmed RED ROVER will be released on digital and on demand on May 12th. Directed by two-time CSA-nominated Shane Belcourt, this movie is about lost and lonely people who want something magical to snap them out of their rut and awaken a deeper spirit inside themselves that feels neglected. Originally inspired by the real-life "Mars One" recruitment contest in 2012, RED ROVER premiered at the Whistler Film Festival and opened the Canadian Film Festival in 2019 and stars Kristian Brunn (Orphan Black, Ready or Not) and Cara Gee (The Call of the Wild, The Expanse). The film will be available in Canada on iTunes, Google Play, Vimeo VOD, Bell VOD and Shaw VOD.
Damon’s in a bit of a rut. He works a passionless job for a boss who doesn’t appreciate him. He lives in the basement of the house his ex-girlfriend and he still own together where he listens to her have passion-filled,tantric sex with her new Australian boyfriend over and over. And he spends countless, lonely hours on the beach with his metal detector searching for something he’ll seemingly never find. Finally, when he gets unceremoniously fired and his ex offers to buy him out, he feels as if there is nothing left for him on Earth.
So when Damon meets Phoebe - a woman dressed as an astronaut handing out flyers for “Red Rover”, a one-way trip to begin life on Mars - his life takes an unexpected turn. All he has to do is be one of the few people selected from thousands of applicants around the world. Thing is, getting picked is more about winning an online popularity contest than actually being qualified, so Phoebe agrees to help him create the ultimate application video. A bond quickly forms between these two lost souls, complicating Damon’s reasoning for going through with this. 33.9 million miles is a long way to go to find what you need when it’s right in front of you.
DIRECTED BY:
Shane Belcourt
What Inspired you to come up with the idea for the film? In 2012, “Mars One” announced that it was going to fund four lucky applicants on a one-way trip to Mars to start colonizing the Red Planet. By 2014 it was all over the news: thousands of applicants started to send in their demo videos or talking on podcasts about why they would be willing to leave everything behind. This seemed utterly insane to Duane and me; who the hell would do that? Just up and leave everything and everyone to live in a space pod, and never come back? Why would someone do this? What kind of person would apply to this? It was impossible to not deep dive into this, which in turn inspired the screenplay.
Why did you want to tell this story?
When my co-writer Duane Murray and I started to watch the applicant videos ... they weren’t “losers” or “nutjobs”, not at all. They were dreamers with what seemed like a connective tissue amongst them all: Desperation. Desperate to do something heroic with their lives. Desperate to escape feeling alone on a planet with people all around them. Something to shake their lives up, to provide for them a chance to touch the impossible from their day-to-day grinds. Um ... so, they’re like Duane and I? Replace “Mars” with “movies” and, um, we’re kinda the same? Once we saw the videos, saw ourselves in these applicants, we couldn’t drop the idea, we wanted to make a movie about this. You know, it’s a tragic comedy ... like our lives.
Sugith Varughese as “Gopi"
What was the most courageous decision you and your crew made during production?
The decision to work with a $50,000 budget, was it courageous or stupefying? But, we all know how this goes: with a great cast, every day is a dream. And it was, so despite the limited resources, a small band of friends (crew of eight people) came together and created a space for the actors to do their thing with the script. They brought it and that was what worked so damn wonderfully.
Everyone came to this project because of the script and their faith in Duane and I to get it done no matter what. That’s a courageous act on their part to trust us to pull this rabbit out of our butts.
Kristian Bruun - Damon
Kristian Bruun is a Toronto-born actor who has worked extensively on stages and screens around the world.
He is best known for playing Donnie Hendrix on BBC America’s hit sci-fi series ORPHAN BLACK, and Constable “Slugger” Jackson for six seasons on CBC’s MURDOCH MYSTERIES. He can now be seen alongside Jerry O’Connell as a lead on Bravo and Sony Television’s newest detective procedural CARTER. Other recent TV appearances include recurring roles in Hulu’s Emmy Award winning THE HANDMAID’S TALE and the J.J.Abrams and Stephen King thriller 11.22.63. Notable Film appearances include Anton Corbijn’s biopic about James Dean’s Life (Berlinale ‘16 Official Selection) where he worked alongside Sir Ben Kingsley, Robert Pattinson and Dan DeHaan, and Jeremy LaLonde’s hilarious comedies HOW TO PLAN AN ORGY IN A SMALL TOWN (Slamdance ’16 Official Selection) and THE GO-GETTERS (Cinequest ’18 Official Selection) and the recent box office smash READY OR NOT.
He is a graduate of the George Brown Theatre School, Queen’s University and Valley Forge Military Academy. Kristian is a citizen of Canada and Finland and currently lives in Los Angeles.
Morgan David Jones as “Mark” & Meghan Heffern as “Beatrice”
Cara Gee - Phoebe
Cara Gee was primarily known as a stage actress in Toronto, Ontario, where her acting credits have included productions of Margaret Atwood’s THE PENELOPIAD, Daniel MacIvor’s ARIGATO, Tokyo, Tomson Highway’s THE REZ SISTERS, Cliff Cardinal’s STITCH, BIRDTOWN and Swanville’s 36 LITTLE PLAYS ABOUT HOPELESS GIRLS and Louise Dupré’s TOUT COMME ELLE.
She made her feature film debut in EMPIRE OF DIRT for which she was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.
For this role, she also won a Special Jury award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival as well as an award for Best Actress at the American Indian Film Festival. In 2013, at TIFF, Gee was named one of the festival’s annual Rising Stars. Gee has also worked in television, recently playing guest roles in the television series KING and REPUBLIC OF DOYLE. In 2014, she starred as one of the lead characters in the Western drama series STRANGE EMPIRE on CBC Television. In 2017 she began to star in the recurring role of Camina Drummer on the Syfy television series THE EXPANSE and will be starring opposite Harrison Ford and Karen Gillan in CALL OF THE WILD in 2020.
The Producers Wish to Thank: • Amanda Greener & Claire Belcourt • Laura Wilson and Emblyn Murray • Rochelle St. John • Christi Belcourt • Judith Pierce Martin & Peter Birtwistle • Tony Belcourt & Danielle Choquette • Morris & Adelle Greener • Elaine Brindley • Jeremy Edwardes • Gabrielle Charron-Merritt • Pasha Patriki @ Red Square • Chris McIvor @ Frank Digital • Tasso Lakas
RED ROVER is available on digital and on demand May 12th
Courtesy of TARO PR