BREED
Breeding isn't all that makes a champion
Proud pugilist Stanley ‘Sumo’ Stafford is contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. Two days before the fight, it is publicly revealed that he is not a boxer, but a Staffordshire Terrier. The news devastates Stanley, who now feels that his entire life has been a lie orchestrated by his brother and trainer, Charley.
Stanley, betrayed and disillusioned, has a choice - to quit boxing and try to rebuild his life as a Staffie or muster all the courage of his training, find the boxer inside himself, and continue his quest to become a champion.
Written and directed by Carey Ryan, Breed is an homage to boxing movies in both theme and construction; a re-imagining of iconic scenes from classic films such as Rocky, Raging Bull, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and On the Waterfront. The protagonist is a classic underdog, right down to the dog’s head worn by he and other characters.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
The raison d'être of my first film Empathy is the Devil, was to make a social comment via interdisciplinary collaboration. We incorporated dance, early cinema, and music to tell a cautionary tale of forgetting the past and rushing into the future.
BREED continues with the challenging and creatively valuable keynotes of classic cinema and collaboration. In this project we use live action with actors in animal masks reviving scenes from iconic boxing films, nested in a score that remembers the past while keeping us in the now.
Boxing was once the world’s most popular sport and its participants are still the highest paid athletes at the top level. Boxing films continue to resonate for their themes of underdogs prevailing over incredible obstacles; heroes rising from poverty; and thrilling hand-to-hand combat.
Films and characters from Rocky, Raging Bull and On the Waterfront are referenced through a retelling of much loved scenes. Updating the stories with characters wearing masks offers a fresh approach to age-old themes, as the underdog tale (sic) is ever more popular in times of unease and rapid change.
BREED is a meticulous construction in its attention to detail, and a difficult but very rewarding challenge for all collaborators.