The actress, who plays the lead role in the Prime Video series Daisy Jones and The Six, signs with Gina Gammell her first film as a director, War Pony – Golden Camera at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. What if Riley Keough is the new icon of American independent cinema?
In 2015, in a motel in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota, Riley Keough filmed a few scenes ofAmerican Honey, the first American feature film by British director Andrea Arnold. It was there that she met Bill Reddy and Franklin Sioux Bob, Native Americans and extras in the film. She became fascinated by their stories fantastic, wild and sometimes disturbing With her friend Gina Gammell, they then visited them regularly at the Pine Ridge Reservation, their ancestral home. Fascinated by the place and its community, they decided to make a film about it. War Pony , for which Bill and Franklin Sioux are co-writers.
Nothing, however, predestined Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis Presley, former model for Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior, to take an interest in the poor and rural America of which War Pony is the portrait. For over a decade, this young filmmaker has been forging a unique path in contemporary American cinema. A child of show business – her stepfathers were Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage – the actress has always chosen her films with taste and intelligence, quietly building a discreet yet impressive career at the age of 33. When she works in Hollywood, it's for renowned directors: Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Logan Lucky and of course the series The Girlfriend Experience) or George Miller and the gleaming Mad Max: Fury RoadGenerally, she is found more in independent cinema: she is the mysterious Sarah, with whom Andrew Garfield falls madly in love in Under the Silver Lake by David Robert Mitchell, or a young mother seeking refuge in an apocalyptic world in the disturbing It Comes at Night by Trey Shults – two films distributed by A24, a leading name in independent cinema across the Atlantic. Riley Keough is also not afraid to venture into riskier projects, such as the highly stylized vampire film Kiss of the Damned, by Xan Cassavetes (John Cassavetes' daughter), or the metaphysical thriller by Lars von Trier The House That Jack BuiltLike Jonah Hill (90's) or Joel Edgerton (Boy ErasedRiley Keough belongs to this new generation of actors and actresses who move easily from film to series, and from acting to directing.
With Gina Gammell, she founded her own production company, Felix Culpa. After War Pony They have just finished their second film as producers. Manodrome, directed by John Trengove, with Jesse Eisenberg as a rideshare driver who dreams of becoming a bodybuilder. A social media regular, Riley Keough has a knack for irony, and the name of her production company – founded by two women in a male-dominated industry – is proof of that: Felix Culpa, "the happy mistake".
War Pony : Theatrical release on May 13, 2023
Felix Culpa
