Thunder Road | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jim Cummings |
Written by | Jim Cummings |
Produced by | Mark Vashro |
Starring | Jim Cummings Kitty Barshay William Daubert |
Cinematography | Drew Daniels |
Edited by | Sound: ornana |
Music by | Bruce Springsteen Father Andrew |
Distributed by | Vimeo |
Release date |
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Running time | 13 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $7,000 [1] |
Thunder Road is a short comedy-drama film written, directed by, and starring Jim Cummings. Shot in one take, the film depicts a police officer giving a eulogy for his mother. It premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, where it received positive reviews, winning the Short Film Grand Jury Prize. A feature-length adaptation of the same name was released in 2018, also written, directed by, and starring Cummings.
Police officer Arnaud eulogizes his mother at her funeral by singing and dancing to the Bruce Springsteen song "Thunder Road".
Cummings wrote the film over two months on his commutes to work at CollegeHumor. The film cost $7,000 to make, of which $2,500 was renting the funeral home. [2] He sold his wedding rings to help fund it. [3] Cummings did not license the song "Thunder Road" prior to its screening at Sundance. Springsteen later viewed the film and enjoyed it, and agreed to license it for online distribution for $1,000. [4]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. [5] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [6]
The film was awarded at the Sundance Film Festival with the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, being called "a mini masterpiece of writing, directing and acting". [7] Short of the Week called it "funny, inventive, and thought-provoking" and "the toast of this year’s American festival circuit-", [8] and IndieWire listed it as one of the best short films ever made. [9]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sundance Film Festival | January 28, 2016 | Short Film Grand Jury Prize | Thunder Road | Won |
South by Southwest | March 15, 2016 | Jury Prize for Acting [10] | Jim Cummings | Won |
Los Angeles Film Festival | June 9, 2016 | Jury Recognition for Outstanding Performance [11] | Jim Cummings | Won |
Palms Springs Shorts Fest | June 26, 2016 | Jury Prize for Acting [12] | Thunder Road | Won |
Atlanta Film Festival | April 19, 2016 | Best Narrative Short [13] | Thunder Road | Won |
HollyShorts Film Festival | August 19, 2016 | Best Narrative Short [14] | Thunder Road | Won |
Rainier Independent Film Festival | May 19, 2016 | Best Short Narrative [15] | Thunder Road | Won |
ShortList Film Festival | August 24, 2016 | Creators League Prize [16] | Thunder Road | Won |
ÉCU Film Festival | April 12, 2016 | Best Non-European Independent Dramatic Short Film [17] | Thunder Road | Won |
Provincetown International Film Festival | June 19, 2016 | Best Narrative Short [18] | Thunder Road | Won |
"Thunder Road" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It is the opening track on his breakthrough album Born to Run. While never released as a single, "Thunder Road" is nevertheless considered one of Springsteen's greatest songs and one of the top rock songs in history. It is ranked number 111 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
IndieWire is a film industry and film criticism website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "include all aspects of Hollywood and the expanding universes of TV and streaming". IndieWire is part of Penske Media Corporation.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
The Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held on Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films for five days in June of each year.
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The 2016 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 21 to January 31, 2016. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 2, 2015. The opening night film was Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. The closing night film was Louis Black and Karen Bernstein's Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny.
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Thunder Road is a 2018 American comedy-drama film directed, written by, and starring Jim Cummings, based on his 2016 short film of the same name. Cummings also served as co-editor, composer and visual effects artist. It also stars Kendal Farr, Nican Robinson, Macon Blair, Jocelyn DeBoer, Chelsea Edmunson, Ammie Leonards, and Bill Wise. It won the Grand Jury Award at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival.
RKSS, an initialism for Roadkill Superstars, is a filmmaking trio consisting of Canadian film directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. They are known for writing and directing their debut feature film Turbo Kid (2015) and for directing the horror mystery film Summer of 84 (2018).
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Jim Cummings is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. He is known for writing, directing and starring in the 2016 short film Thunder Road, which he extended into a 2018 feature film of the same name. He also wrote, directed and starred The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020), and The Beta Test (2021). He also starred in The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023).
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