Amid diverse travelers and affluent locals, Sunny struggles to find solace within his hometown and amongst his friends.
Director’s Vision for ‘The Chieftain of the Pudding Race’
David and I are just a couple of guys who met at film school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We proceeded to become creative colleagues and good friends, having the opportunity to obtain training from some of the better conceptual and experimental filmmakers that the US has to offer: Don Yannacito, Victor Jendras, Usama Alshaibi, Alex Cox, Melinda Barlow, Chris Pearce, and the legendary Phil Solomon (RIP Phil).
Though I left the US to venture into a life of travel in 2016, David and I have still remained in touch over time. We have been separated for a long period, but continue to keep caught up on each other’s lives. As social distancing was the normal due to COVID restrictions, the flood gates for creative writing opened, allowing many stories to be etched onto paper through online meetings. This film is one of those stories.
This is a story trying to describe some realism from life. It is a film that reflects a certain society in our world. A society of transience. The goal from day one on this piece has been to show what living in a whimsical manner looks like from a certain perspective (more or less).
Though David couldn’t make it out to Australia for production, I took the reigns of all on site direction. First landing in Australia in late 2016, I have now made it my home. I have had the privilege to work with many creative artists from all walks of life and corners of the world, allowing my team and I to create a film about transience with an international cast and crew, including the community of Byron Bay at all possible corners on the project.
Through various months of pre-production, campaigning for the film, to constant setbacks from the always changing sub-tropical climate and COVID restrictions in Australia, the film has turned into something quite meaningful for those who were involved in making this come to life. It truly is a miracle how these things happen and the support of our friends and family in the community has shown us what is possible when we can all put our minds together to make something genuine, pure, honest, and mostly important, strangely relatable.
