Vegas: Based On A True Story
Selected for competition for the 65th Venice Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival
Synopsis: Eddie Parker, his wife Tracy and their 12-year-old son Mitch lead blue-collar lives on the outskirts of America’s pleasure capital, Las Vegas. A compulsive gambler, Eddie has never won big. Tending her small garden in the desert, Tracy tries to keep the fragile family life together. Then an elusive stranger shows up claiming there’s something special about their home and he makes an offer that quickly turns into the family’s obsession. The only question is how deep are they willing to go? Watch on Amazon Prime / Vimeo Demand
Film Festivals: Venice Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Tokyo FILMeX, Bratislava International Film Festival, Febio Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CineVegas International Film Festival, Paris Cinéma, Vancouver International Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival & Vienna International Film Festival.
AMIR NADERI started his international career in Iran in the 1970s with award-winning films such as Waiting and Requiem. In the 80s, he helped focus international attention on Iranian cinema with acclaimed works such as The Runner and Water, Wind, Dust. Based in New York City since the late ‘80s, Naderi has since made his New York Trilogy: Manhattan by Numbers (1993), A, B, C… Manhattan (1997), and Marathon (2002). His U.S. films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/MOMA’s New Films New Director’s series, the Venice, Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. His other feature, Sound Barrier (2005), won the Roberto Rossellini Critics Prize at the Rome Film Festival. Vegas : Based on a True Story (2008) is his fifth American feature.
“… a timely, disturbing parable on the consequences of greed.” — Stephen Holden, New York Times
“a raw tragedy in the tradition… of Stroheim’s Greed.” — Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times
“Naderi reveals the consuming obsessiveness of addiction, as Eddie pursues the American dream of prospecting for gold in his own backyard. If you have ever shared that dream, that disease, Vegas could bore into your gut.” — Richard Corliss, Time
“Naderi’s stated goal, to wed his more experimental recent work to a strong narrative throughline, has been realized with a vengeance…. highly poetic… [the] characters’ driving obsessions traverse cinematic synapses on America’s psychological landscape.” — Ronnie Scheib, Variety
“The experimental does not preclude great formal achievement. The proof is Amir Naderi’s Vegas…” — Eugenio Renzi, Cahiers du Cinema
“Acclaimed director Amir Naderi applies his inimitable cinematic style to Vegas, a timely and complex fable about our current economic crisis. ” — Jason Guerrasio, Filmmaker Magazine
“A clever metaphor for and trenchant comment on our compulsive, irrational real-estate dreams.”– Steven Zeitchik, Hollywood Reporter, Risky Business Blog
“a mesmerizing tale of greed gone bad” — Mickey Rapkin, GQ
“powerful, fablelike drama” — Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
“immensely more satisfying on both a visual and a philosophical level” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
Cast: Nancy La Scala as Tracy, Mark Greenfield as Eddie, and Zach Thomas as Mitch.
Supporting Cast: Walt Turner as Brian, Alexis Hart as Stephanie, and Cathy Leach as Doris.
Director: Amir Naderi
Screenplay: Amir Naderi, Susan Brennan, Bliss Esposito, Charlie Lake Keaton
Editor: Amir Naderi
Producers:Amir Naderi, Abou Farman
Director of photography: Chris Edwards
Production Manager: Brandon Kordic
Sound editor: Jamie Canobbio
Associate Producers: Ram Devineni, Nasser Ghaderi Rattapallax Films assisted with productions funds.
Format: 102 MIN. USA. 2008.
Domestic Sales Agent:
Cinetic Media, 555 W. 25th Street, 4th floor, New York, New York, 10001
Fax 1-212-204-7980 / Tel. 1-212-204-7979 / sales@cineticmedia.com
International Sales Agent:
Celluloid Dreams 2 rue Turgot, 75009 Paris
T +33 1 49 70 03 70 F +33 1 49 70 03 71 / info@celluloid-dreams.com
Vegas: Based on a True Story is an Alphaville Films NYC production. The screenplay was developed thanks to the New York State Council for the Arts and Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Filmed on location in Las Vegas and Pahrump, Nevada.