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Castle in the Ground Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 Runtime: 105 minutes Written & Directed by Joey Klein Produced by: William Woods Woods Entertainment Michael Solomon Band With Pictures Produced with the participation of: Telefilm Canada Ontario Creates Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation Crave & Line 200 Inc Developed with the assistance of: Harold Greenberg Fund A Crave Original Film Press Contacts – The DDA Group / Nastasya Morauw [email protected], 310-205-4868 Production – Woods Entertainment / William Woods [email protected], 416-892-5400 Canadian Distributor – Pacific Northwest Pictures / Steven St. Amant [email protected], 416-550-6197 Sales – CAA / Allison Hironaka [email protected] Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 SHORT SYNOPSIS After the untimely death of his mother (Neve Campbell), Henry (Alex Wolff), a rudderless teenager, befriends his charismatic but troubled next-door neighbor (Imogen Poots), who embroils him in a world of addiction and violence just as the opioid epidemic takes hold of their small town. LONG SYNOPSIS Henry (Alex Wolff) is a caretaker, of himself, of his home; but most importantly of his chronically ill single mother (Neve Campbell). His girlfriend has left for college, his ascetic Jewish relatives and their obligatory condolences frustrate more than comfort. So when his mother finally passes, he complicit in her drug induced death, Henry is left without purpose, alone for the first time with a crippling grief, as well as an unfinished bottle of Oxycontin 80s...The only person in his life that isn’t placating to his loss is his loud, subversive neighbor ANA (Imogen Poots), who’s across the hall and trying to kick her own habit just as Henry is developing his own. Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT My aim is to explore social activism through cinema – to tell stories of two beleaguered souls united in the alienating city, having no one but each other. In an age where The New York Times, Forbes and the BBC warn of a loneliness "epidemic”’ (Wency Leung, The Globe and Mail), I look to examine the effects of a violent culture on the welfare of fractured communities. To uncover how grief and PTSD transform the possibilities of ‘normalcy’; to demystify stigmas of mental health and addiction; to explore modern content through expressionist form in a space of elevated, conflated genre. I am driven by what it means, not only to make a film today, but a film of today in this era where cynicism trumps romance; where reality has become stranger than fiction. I remain committed to a theatre of feeling in all its baroque expressions, rather than the cool irreverence of pop culture zeitgeist. I am interested in the balance between minimalism and excess and the fine line between drama and melodrama. In all, I strive to explore a world that blends beauty with cacophony and hope with the forbidding. Where sinking ships crash in the dead of night. NOTE FROM PRODUCER WILLIAM WOODS As a producer, I'm always excited to see a filmmaker delve into difficult subjects without letting a "clinical" approach interrupt a grounded exploration of the characters' emotional truths. Joey Klein's first film, The Other Half, did this in spades, with a charm and style that is so rarely captured consistently throughout a film. When Joey first told me about Castle in the Ground, I knew it was going to be a natural extension from his first feature. I loved how he guided us into this world through the characters instead of simply through the systemic political and economic factors that caused the opioid epidemic. This existential approach focused so much more on the characters own emotional pain, which has made him and our culture at large vulnerable to a "medicine" that evaporates your emotional and physical discomforts… I loved even more Joey's decision to focus on a very specific epoch when OxyContin 80 was taken off the market opening a gateway for fake Oxys, or Shady 80s, made with Fentanyl, to flood the streets. This exploration through specific time and place allows us to feel the terror of the Fentanyl explosion rather than just understand it; it illuminates the most central truth about our culture that could save us from a pain pill epidemic, which is that we need to accept that Pain, in all its forms, is fundamental to life. Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 ABOUT THE MAKING OF CASTLE IN THE GROUND The film was set in 2012 to honour the watershed moment where OxyContin was taken off the market by Purdue Pharma (for reasons involving patents, not morality), leading to the influx of fake OxyContin pills made (mostly) of Fentanyl. It was shot in March 2019 in Sudbury, where the film is set. The town and people of Sudbury were ever giving and welcoming; proving to be both great ambassadors and collaborators. The film was framed in 4:3 to foster and thereby create a claustrophobic aesthetic set in narrow hallways and cage-like doorways. As the world closes in on our protagonists, the classic, age-old aspect ratio frames a modern-day story of addiction and trauma that tragically is all but as old as time. The filmmaker wishes to thank all his great collaborators and supporters who helped make this film in an intimate, familial environment with some of the very best creatives in the world. Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 ABOUT THE CAST ALEX WOLFF (HENRY) Alex Wolff is a multi-faceted artist, and an award-winning actor, musician, singer, and composer. His most recent work includes Bad Education (2019), where he stars alongside Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney, The Line (2019) with Lewis Pullman and John Malkovich, and Hereditary (2018). Wolff has been awarded for his performance as an actor in multiple features, which includes The Naked Brothers Band (2007), where he was given the Broadcast Music Inc. Cable Award and the Young Artist Award for 2008 and 2009, alongside his brother Nat Wolff, and for Hair Brained (2013), where he received a Certificate for Outstanding Achievement for Best Actor at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. He is also known for his performances in Mr. Troop Mom (2009), In Treatment (2008), and Stella's Last Weekend (2018). In 2019, he made his directorial debut, The Cat and the Moon (2019), which was recently acquired by FilmRise to be released theatrically. IMOGEN POOTS (ANA) British actress Imogen Poots was born in Hammersmith, London, England, the daughter of English-born Fiona (Goodall), a journalist, and Trevor Poots, a Northern Ireland-born television producer. Her passion for acting developed at a young age, while attending the Youngblood Theatre Company as a teenager. In 2019, Poots’ starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Zombieland) in two features, Vivarium and The Art of Self-Defense. She is also known for her role in the award-winning film Green Room (2015) where she worked alongside acclaimed director Jeremy Saulnier. Poots' initial screen debut was a (2004) role in British medical drama Casualty (1986). She made her big screen debut as Young Valerie in V for Vendetta (2005). Since then she has worked on a number of features, including 28 Weeks Later (2007), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Centurion (2010), Bouquet of Barbed Wire (2010), Fright Night (2011), A Late Quartet (2012), Greetings from Tim Buckley (2012), and The Look of Love (2013). NEVE CAMPBELL (REBECCA) Canadian actress Neve Campbell is an established and well-known actress who has graced multiple films and TV shows of popular culture. She made her big-screen debut on the series “Party of Five” (1994). Described as TV's most believable teenager, her first major film role came in the form of innocent victim "Sidney Prescott" in Scream (1996), the film which re-defined the slasher genre. In more recent years her career has pivoted to arthouse genres. In 2016, she joined the cast of the acclaimed series “House of Cards,” playing Leann Harvey. Shortly after, in 2018, she starred opposite Dwayne Johnson in the action movie Skyscraper and most recently alongside Taylor Russell and Steve Coogan in Hot Air (2018). She is also known for her performances in Three to Tango (1999) alongside Matthew Perry and Wild Things (1998) with Denise Richards and Matt Dillon. TOM CULLEN (JIMMY) Tom Cullen is a Welsh actor. He is most known for his roles in Weekend (2011), where he received the Most Promising Newcomer award at the British Independent Film Awards, “Black Mirror” (2011), and “Knightfall” (2017), where he stars opposite Kit Harington and Liv Tyler. His most recent films include Desert Dancer (2014), The Last Days on Mars (2013), Happily Ever After (2016), 100 Streets (2016) alongside Idris Elba and Gemma Arterton, Mine (2016) opposite Armie Hammer, and Zebra Girl, which is currently being filmed. In 2001, Cullen appeared in Daddy’s Girl, a short film which won the BAFTA Cymru for Best Film. Woods Entertainment Canada, [email protected], Tel: 416-892-5400 KEIR GILCHRIST (POLO BOY) Keir Gilchrist is an English-born Canadian actor. In 2017, he starred in the Netflix comedy television series “Atypical”. He also stars in It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010), opposite Zach Galifianakis and Emma Roberts, and It Follows (2014). Gilchrist also starred in Dark Summer (2015) and The Good Neighbor (2016), alongside James Caan. His film debut was The Right Way (2004) when he played the young version of one the lead characters of the film. KIOWA GORDON (STEVIE) Kiowa Gordon is an American actor who grew up on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Arizona.