John Swab, director, James badge Dale, actor , "King Ivory". The spread of fenatnyl is a curse. Everyone is overwhelmed by it, no matter which side they are on.
John Swab presented his film “King Ivory” in the Orizzonti Etra sectiomn of the Venice International Film Festival. The film is about the tragedy that is decimating the young population in the United States: the spread of fentanyl. Many films have been made on the subject, but “King Ivory” takes a different, non-judgmental, non-moral, but objective and transversal look at all the people overwhelmed by this scourge, from consumers to families to the police trying to contain it. We talked with the director John Swab and the actor James Badge Dale.
I wanted a contemporary film, almost an instant movie
John Swab wanted to create a film that could not be seen as a thing of the past, he wanted “King Ivory” to be immediate, in the present, and very personal too. Hence the style: hand-held camera, almost reality TV, and many non-actors (real policemen, real drug dealers, real junkies).
This is a true independent film
James Badge Dale is proud of the work he did with John Swab. for him, the character is not just a cop and not just his point of view in the film, the film is almost voyeuristic in the way we see what happens and how the stories intertwine. The film is shot in real time and this is the strength and difference with other films on the same theme.
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"King Ivory", interview with the director John Swab and lead actor James Badge DaleAngelo Acerbi
From civilians to criminals, drug addicts to law enforcement and everyone in between, all walks of life intersect in this denunciation of the pandemic that is the spread of fentanyl. In street slang: King Ivory. It is a day like any other for Layne West of the Tulsa drug squad, engaged in a battle with local crime, but it touches him to the core when Jack, his son, becomes addicted to fentanyl. Together with his colleague Ty and Beatty, their counterparts in the FBI, West's sole mission is to catch the perpetrators: Ramón Garza, who runs the local Mexican cartel; Holt Lightfeather, Chief Warrior of the Indian Brotherhood, who controls the statewide traffic from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary to McAlester (known as ‘Big Mac’) where he is serving life in prison; and the local Irish Mafia gang, led by George ‘Smiley’ Greene along with his mother Ginger and uncle Mickey. As Holt teaches West during a prison visit, ‘The cartels want your kids, the new generation, who want new things, and fentanyl is a new thing’.
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