Another View 2017 / Freak Show / USA 2017
Billy Bloom never felt he was like other people, but if there’s something his classmates don’t like, it’s the fact that his fashion choices range between David Bowie and Lady Gaga at their most psychedelic. Billy’s response to bullying is simple: an even thicker layer of glitter and a stubborn determination to fight for his uniqueness.
Billy Bloom never felt he was like other people. In fact, since childhood he has been told that being enchanting, wonderful, and unique was his mission in life. But in today’s world you’re punished for being different. His classmates’ distaste for his eccentric fashion choices, which range between David Bowie and Lady Gaga at their most psychedelic, eventually turns into open bullying. Billy’s recipe for survival is simple: an even thicker layer of glitter and a stubborn determination to fight for his uniqueness. At first glance, actor and producer Trudie Styler’s directorial debut may look like a typical high school comedy, but there is much more beneath the surface. Styler masterfully works with the genre’s typical characters (the pretty cheerleader, the captain of the football team), placing them into atypical roles that aid the protagonist in sharing his message: We all have a right to express ourselves.
Anna Kořínek
91 min / Color, DCP
Director Trudie Styler
/ Screenplay Patrick J. Clifton, Beth Rigazio podle románu / based on the novel by James St. James
/ Dir. of Photography Dante Spinotti
/ Music Dan Romer
/ Editor Sarah Flack
/ Art Director Franckie Diago
/ Producer Jeffrey Coulter, Bryan Rabin, Trudie Styler, Celine Rattray, Charlotte Ubben, Ember Truesdell, Chris Miller
/ Production Maven Pictures, Flower Films
/ Cast Alex J. Lawther, Abigail Breslin, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Nelson
/ Sales The Works Film Group
Trudie Styler (b. 1954, Bromsgrove, UK) is an actor, director and producer. She is also active in environmental protection and is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. She started out as a theater and television actor, but in the early 1990s she shifted her focus on producing feature films – for instance, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000) and Duncan Jones’s Moon (2009). In 2011 she joined with Celine Rattray to found Maven Pictures, which produced Still Alice (2014, dirs. Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland) and last year’s Cannes hit American Honey (2016, dir. Andrea Arnold). Her feature debut Freak Show screened in the Generation 14plus section at the 67th Berlinale.
The Works Film Group
5th Floor, Fairgate House, 78 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1HB, London
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 207 612 1080
Fax: +44 207 612 1081
E-mail: [email protected]
Trudie Styler
Sarah Flack
Film Editor
Marike Jainchill
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