UK actors Billy Howle and Tom Bateman have touched down in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia to play Irish brothers in feature film Kid Snow, with principal photography commencing today, thanks to major production investment from Screen Australia in association with Screenwest, Lotterywest and the Western Australian Screen Fund.
Howle’s list of feature film credits include Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Outlaw King and On Chesil Beach, whilst Bateman shone in the recent hit Netflix series Behind Her Eyes as well as feature films Thirteen Lives, Death on the Nile, Cold Pursuit and Murder on the Orient Express.
Australian actress Phoebe Tonkin joins the lads having previously been seen on the big screen in Tomorrow, When the War Began and TV series’ H2O: Just Add Water, Bloom, Westworld, The Originals and Safe Harbour.
They join a fantastic ensemble cast of Western Australian actors including Tasma Walton (How to Please a Woman, Mystery Road), Mark Coles Smith (Mystery Road: Origin, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Last Cab to Darwin) and Shaka Cook (Top End Wedding, Operation Buffalo) and Australian actors Hunter Page-Lochard (Fires, Streamline, Cleverman), Robert Taylor (Into the Ashes, Longmire), Nathan Phillips (Wolf Creek, These Final Hours, Balibo) and Jack LaTorre (Nine Perfect Strangers).
Set in a 1970s sweat-drenched world of tent boxing in outback Western Australia, Kid Snow is a film about breaking free from the cycle of loss and regret.
A washed-up Irish boxer named Kid Snow is finally faced with a chance to redeem himself when he is offered a rematch against the man he fought a decade prior, on a night that changed his life forever. When he meets single mother Sunny, he is forced to contemplate a future beyond boxing.
Director Paul Goldman (Australian Rules, The Night We Called It A Day, Suburban Mayhem) says Kid Snow is a quest for redemption measured by the size of a boxer’s heart and the love and courage of a woman. It is a story about learning what’s worth fighting for in life.
“When I was given an early draft of the script, I remember reading and re-reading the first dozen pages, getting my bearings, and simply enjoying the world of this story,” said Goldman.
“It felt exotic and authentic, a world I hadn’t seen in any film before. Powerfully visceral, a world of stale sweat and beer, campfires and mateship, dust and blinding sunlight. Fake blood and real pain.”
“We have assembled a wonderful ensemble cast, a mighty crew and extraordinary locations in our quest to make a big screen, cinematic film, that packs a visual and emotional punch.”
Writers John Brumpton and Stephen Cleary have brought this world alive with a script that reads as much like a modern Western as it does a timeless love story.
Set against an expansive last frontier of landlocked horizons leading to nowhere (otherwise known as the Great Australian Outback), Kid Snow is a compelling love story: between a man and a woman, as well as one between two brothers, whilst shining a light on a little-known aspect of Australia’s history: the legacy of tent boxing.
Boxing tents toured around Australia’s small towns from the early 1900s until the 1970s, when professional tent fighters faced off against local challengers. The troupes crisscrossed the outback attached often, but not always, to the Agricultural Shows of larger rural centres – their carnival-like gaudy, circus atmosphere was a place where local legends could be born and where Indigenous fighters became heroes in their own communities and beyond.
The film will be produced by Lizzette Atkins (Looking for Grace), Megan Wynn (The Childhood of a Leader) and Bruno Charlesworth (Ladies In Black), with Executive Producer Matthew Gledhill (Far from Men).
“Kid Snow is the first feature film to kick off production in WA since our border opened – bringing together an incredible Western Australian, Australian and international cast alongside a talented Australian crew. This production will be yet another opportunity to showcase the beautiful Goldfields-Esperance region to an international audience,” said Rikki Lea Bestall, Screenwest CEO.
Kid Snow is a Unicorn Films, Immaculate Conception and Wynn Media production, with major production investment from Screen Australia in association with Screenwest, Lotterywest and the Western Australian Screen Fund. Financed in association with VicScreen with support from Soundfirm and the Goldfields Esperance Development Commission. It will be distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment and French-based sales agent Elle Driver is managing international sales.
