Short Film THE DUKE: Set for Seven Film Festivals This Year

THE DUKE: BASED ON THE MEMOIR "I AM THE DUKE" BY J.P. DUKE [THE DUKE], a short film by Max Barbakow and starring SONS OF ANARCHY and THE LAST SHIP alum LaMonica Garrett, has been accepted at seven esteemed film festivals in 2016, including the Tribeca Film Festivaland in the American Pavilion at the prestigious Court Métrage (Short Film Corner) at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Other screenings include the Vail Film Festival, Taos Shortz Film Fest, and All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival. The film had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and most recently was accepted and screened at the Pasadena International Film Festival.

Digital press kit (with full cast and crew bios and background) is available here, and advance screening arrangements are available; please contact Sara Schiffer of Proof PR at sara@proofpr.net.

THE DUKE is director Max Barbakow's second film, his first being the autobiographical feature documentary MOMMY, I'M A BASTARD! about his open adoption. THE DUKE was Barbakow's thesis film as a Directing Fellow at the AFI Conservatory.

THE DUKE uses the form of the short film to construct the reality of J.P Duke, a lovable ex-football player afflicted with CTE. Unlike the controversial Will Smith-vehicle CONCUSSION, Barbakow's tragicomedy humanizes the men plagued by this malady through a combination of irreverent screwball energy and a focus on the sadness of a gladiator whose days under the bright lights have rendered him all but useless in everyday life.

Says Barbakow, "Concussions in football are at once both a hot-button contemporary health crisis and an inconvenience/taboo for the NFL. No matter how much you read or how many documentaries you watch about the long-term impacts of head trauma, none of this media successfully places the viewer inside the mind of a football player afflicted with concussion-induced Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (or CTE). That was what I aimed to do with THE DUKE-pull the viewer into the heartbreaking reality of what life is like for men who must start over all too soon, and whose condition can result in depression, dementia and death."

Co-writer Derek J. Pastuszek has experience with injuries related to repeated concussions from a successful collegiate hockey career, while producer Dan Leonard and Barbakow shared similar experiences during their high school hockey and football days, respectively, making both the tone of the story and urgency of the subject a matter of personal importance.

Barbakow, who has previously worked under director David O. Russell on AMERICAN HUSTLE, directs a cast led by LaMonica Garrett (BLACK-ISH, DADDY'S HOME, VEEP, TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, SONS OF ANARCHY). Aside from humanizing this sensationalistic issue, Garrett, who trained with several teams in the NFL before leaving to pursue acting full time, next stars in Michael Bay's TNT series THE LAST SHIP and the upcoming ABC drama DESIGNATED SURVIVOR with Kiefer Sutherland.

The film's frenetic pacing, jarring lighting and nerve-searing sound editing place the viewer inside a CTE-ridden mind, telling the necessary and compelling story of the perils of football. The complementary music and soundtrack were done by Huma-Huma, a bicoastal music house out of Los Angeles and New York City specializing in film, television, and interactive installations. They paid special heed to the peculiarities and discomfort of ordinary sounds skewed by the head trauma of the protagonist, the resulting soundscape and original music finish the film with a score that is at once cohesive and dissonant.

For further information and to view a trailer of the film, please visit www.iamtheduke.com.

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