Down with the King

Q&A with director Diego Ongaro and producer Rob Cristiano

2021. 100 m. Diego Ongaro. Sony Pictures Entertainment. US. English. Rated NR.

Series

Rap star Money Merc (played by Grammy nominated hip hop artist Freddie Gibbs) has been sent by his manager, Paul, to a rural house in the Berkshires to focus on his next album. Disenchanted with his rap career and the 24/7 upkeep that such fame entails, Merc has no desire to write or record music. Instead he spends most of his time at his neighbor’s farm learning about farming and enjoying the simplicity of country life. After Merc abruptly announces his retirement on Twitter, Paul rushes to the countryside to lure him back into the music industry.

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"The trait Down With the King exhibits most powerfully is patience, something in short supply in modern cinema or, for that matter, the modern world. Instead of pushing to resolve conflicts or simplify contradictions, it asks us to examine how we live by walking for a while in someone else’s shoes and feeling how they no longer fit.
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"Ongaro’s clearest antecedents are Kelly Reichardt and Agnès Varda, realists with sly, irrepressible humor that occasionally blends with their pursuit of the real."
Andrew Crump, The Playlist

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11/16 6:30PM: Q&A with director Diego Ongaro and producer Rob Cristiano

Wednesday, Nov. 16 2022, 6:30

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Diego Ongaro is a writer/director and editor. Down With the King is his second feature film. It premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival (ACID section), won the Grand Prix at the Deauville American Film Festival in France and was recently acquired by Sony Pictures Worldwide for distribution. Bob and the Trees, his first feature film, had its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, won the top prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czech Republic and screened in more than 20 international festivals throughout the world. He was short-listed for the Someone to Watch Award at the 2016 and 2022 Independent Spirit Awards for both feature films.
Rob Cristiano is a Brooklyn-born independent filmmaker. His feature film producing credits include festival favorites The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Winner - Grand Jury Prize - Sundance '18), Bob and the Trees (Sundance '15, Winner - Crystal Globe - Karlovy Vary Int'l Film Fest '15), and Keep the Change (Winner - Best US Narrative Film - Tribeca Film Festival '17, Winner - Critics' Award, Karlovy Vary Int'l Film Festival '17). In recent years, Cristiano produced the award-winning Broadway-themed web series Understudies, an episodic VR pilot and more than a dozen acclaimed short films that have screened at over one hundred film festivals in twenty different countries.