UPDATE (17/03/2016) – Sadly we have to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control we will not be going ahead with Broke – Byron Bay Screening and Q&A Event on March 31st. For anyone that has purchased tickets, you will be contacted by the venue to organise a refund in the next few days.
We understand that there may be some screenings in our region in the near future, we plan to promote these screenings when details are confirmed.
We apologise for any inconvenience.
‘Aussies love an underdog story and Broke is exactly that. A redemption tale, a salt of the earth drama with that typical Aussie humour’
Director, Heath Davis
Screening plus Q & A with Director Heath Davis, Producer Luke Graham
and lead actors Max Cullen & Steve Le Marquand
7pm Thursday 31 March, 2015
Byron Theatre, Byron Community Centre, 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay
(02) 6685 6807
Tickets: $17 Member/Concession $22 General
Awaiting classification – recommended for audiences over 15
Broke tells the fictional story of former North Sydney rugby league star Ben Kelly, whose life spirals out of control in retirement at the hands of alcohol and a gambling addiction. Cec, an ageing rail worker stumbles across his favourite player destitute and struggling and attempts to help him turn his life around.
The film stars some of Australia’s best talent including Steve Le Marquand and Max Cullen who will be attending the Byron premiere. Max Cullen plays the good samaritan, Steve Le Marquand the fallen hero, and Claire van der Boom is the love interest. The film lured an all star cast and crew who waived their regular fees to help bring this important project to fruition.
The story of the film was close to home for the both filmmakers “Having grown up in and around rugby league and problem gamblers it was only a matter of time before I was to sit down and write a screenplay about the experience. And with the recent gambling related scandals and tragedies dominating the game’s headlines the timing was never more pertinent” explains director Heath Davis.
Gambling addiction is a social problem that has had some high-profile casualties. “Hopefully we can create a bit of a dialogue and get some understanding of an issue that’s affecting more and more people,” says Davis. “Aussies love an underdog story and Broke is exactly that”.
Multi award winning Producer Luke Graham, whose father was a rugby league player for the North Sydney Bears, explains ‘The film is close to my heart, family and up-bringing, therefore my passion to bring its message to a wide audience was quite an easy decision”. “It’s based on a lot of players I got to know growing up. It is a timely and topical with its gambling related themes. But, above all, it is a celebration of the human spirit much like our great game is.”
Essentially the film is a story of human redemption. It explores the highs and lows and the frailty of these ‘superstars’ who are really just ordinary people and the aftermath of success and the pressure of the world of sport. ‘They are everyday people whose struggles and self inflictions are common’ says Graham.
Broke is the fifth collaboration for this producer director team and Davis first feature film. The film was made with private finance, crowdfunding and National Rugby League backing.
“Broke is a moving and inspiring redemption tale about the destructive nature of addiction, the universal need for mateship and compassion and, ultimately the healing power of forgiveness and second chances”
Mark Graham, New Zealand Rugby League Immortal
http://www.brokethefilm.net/
https://www.facebook.com/brokethefilm
HEATH DAVISHEATH DAVIS is an award winning filmmaker whose short films have screened and won awards at various international film festivals including Telluride, Tribeca and Seattle film festival. Davis has written several feature films developed in conjunction with Screen Australia including The Strangers optioned by MacGowan Films and The Canary Cottage by Producer Luke Graham (Broke). Since graduating from the University of Western Sydney, Davis has written and directed the short films Spoon Man, Bella, Bee Sting and Rabbit as well as numerous music videos and TVCs with Sydney based production house Scope Red.
LUKE GRAHAM
Producer
LUKE GRAHAM is a film producer and founder of the Capricorn Film Festival whom has built a career creating multi award winning short films, including Spoonman, Bella, Bee Sting and The Last Roll of the Dice. Over the last nine years Luke’s film’s have been selected to over 30 of the worlds best film festival’s and taking out some of its most prestigious awards. He started film production house Scope Red in 2005, which he worked with multiple directors including Heath Davis who continued their collaboration with the motion picture Broke. Braille, his micro budget first feature film received distribution in the USA with Osiris Entertainment, its third territory internationally behind South Africa and Japan through IFM Films.
CAST
STEVE LE MARQUAND
Le Marquand has featured as a sleazy cult leader in Nick Matthews One Eyed Girl; a dodgy drug dealer in Stephan Elliott’s A Few Best Men; a battle hardened sergeant in Beneath Hill 60 (which earned him a Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Supporting Actor nomination 2009); a snarly stockbroker in 2008’s surprise hit, Men’s Group; a tall thug in Jeremy Sims’ Last Train to Freo (for which he was nominated for Best Lead Actor at both the Australian Film Institute and Film Critic’s Circle Awards); a WWII digger in Kokoda; a larrikin Aussie climber in Martin Campbell’s Vertical Limit; a clumsy, shotty-loving bank robber in Gregor Jordan’s Two Hands; a cop in David Caesar’s Mullet; a weird-arsed beachcomber in Lost Things and an all-singing-all-dancing sailor in Disney’s remake of South Pacific.
MAX CULLEN
Cullen is an Australian-born stage and screen actor. He has appeared in many Australian films and television series but is best known for his roles in films Spider and Rose and Jindabyne; and in the television series The Flying Doctors and Love My Way. He has also featured in some 50 television programmes such as Skippy, Matlock, Bodyline, Cowra Breakout, The Flying Doctors, A Country Practice, Police Rescue, G.P., The Damnation of Harvey McHugh, McLeod’s Daughters, All Saints and Love My Way and Black Jack. Cullen recently played roles in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine alongside fellow Australian actor Hugh Jackman and played “Owl Eyes” in the 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby.
Awards include: the 1984 Logie Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Last Bastion; Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Tempest; the 1994 Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in Spider and Rose and the 1994 AFI Award for the same; the 1999 Green Room Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in Cloudstreet, 2004 Icon Award for Cinema Owners Association of Australia. 2005 nominated AFI award, best supporting actor, Love My Way. Since 2007 Cullen has also been performing “Lawson”, a one-man show based on the life of Australian poet Henry Lawson.
