Distribution: Wild Bunch
World Sales: Hanway Films
A prison and boxing movie, A Payer Before Dawn swings between genres to tell the true story of the imprisonment of boxer Billy Moore in Thailand. A drug addict and a rebellious and untameable fighter, he finds himself confronted by a wild but regulated world and tries to get out of it by fighting in a ring. Nine years after Johnny Mad Dog , Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire returns to the cinema with a story that’s naturalistic and chilling, hypnotic and violent. He takes an in-depth look at when bodies clash, collapse and become entangled, and each main character holds on to the smallest window of hope in a work that deserves to be described as a film that “packs a lot of punch”.
Country: France, United Kingdom
Year: 2017
Duration: 1hr57
Version: English and Thaï, with French subtitles
Rating: 12+
Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Producers: Roy Boulter, Rita Dagher
Screenplay: Jonathan Hirschbein, Nick Saltrese
Cinematography: David Ungaro
Editing: Marc Boucrot
Music: Nicolas Becker
Cast: Joe Cole, Billy Moore, Vithaya Pansringarm