Graham McTavish, Susie Porter, Honor Gillies & Stan Steinbichler star in psychological folk thriller
Celebrating UK Premiere at Raindance Film Festival this June
Nominated for four awards at Raindance Film Festival 2025
Mystic Dream Story Studio and Stone Hill, in association with Saint Halo Productions are delighted to announce that their psychological cult thriller, DIRTY BOY, will be celebrating its UK Premiere at the 33rd Raindance Film Festival on 22nd June. The film has been nominated for four awards at the festival; Best Performance in a UK Feature (Graham McTavish), Best UK Feature, Best Director of a UK Feature (Doug Rao) and Best UK Cinematography. DIRTY BOY marks Doug Rao’s feature length directorial debut, which he also wrote and co-produced. The film stars Stan Steinbichler (Zero Chill, Vienna Blood, Eismayer), Susie Porter (Gold, Wentworth Prison, Cargo), Honor Gillies (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) and Graham McTavish (The Witcher, Outlander, The Hobbit). The film was produced by Giles Alderson (The Stranger in Our Bed, Wolves of War, The Dare), Sarah Ann Grill (Slammer, Solitary) and Marek Lichtenberg (The Final 45), who also stars in the film. Raised in an oppressive cult, a reclusive schizophrenic discovers that he’s being framed by the cult leaders for a series of ritualistic murders and must prove his innocence by saving their next victim and destroying the evil sect from within. Watch the trailer here:
Commenting of the films upcoming UK Premiere at Raindance, writer and director Doug Rao said; “I’m thrilled that Dirty Boy is having its UK premiere at Raindance; it’s the perfect home for a film this strange, subversive, and emotionally unhinged. Raindance has always championed wild, independent voices, and Dirty Boy is certainly that. As star Graham McTavish dubs it, it’s: ‘The bastard offfspring of The Sound of Music’. To be screening in the heart of the West End, a million miles from the isolated world of the movie, feels strangely right. I can’t wait for the UK to finally meet our twisted little bastard offspring of a film.” DIRTY BOY will have its UK Premiere at Raindance Film Festival on 22nd June
Director’s Statement “Dirty Boy was written from a place of intense darkness – and I wanted to find the light and the humour within it. I want to explore the sense that complex understandings are often borne out of suffering. I wanted to experiment with identity as a fluctuating concept – can anyone really define themselves as one persona when there are so many versions of ‘the self’?
Isaac in Dirty Boy has created an ‘alter’ that his subconscious has formed to process forgotten traumas – but which one is really him?
As someone says of Isaac’s tendency to blame his alter for his bad behaviour: ‘He’s you, you asshole, he’s you!’ In Dirty Boy, we also explore both the beauty and the villainy that religious doctrine can inspire.
I am delighted with the level of cast I have for my debut feature and getting to work in such a stunning place as the ‘Ausseerland/Saltzkammergut’ in Austria, famously used as a backdrop for The Sound of Music and Spectre adds unbelievable value to the look of the film – a paradisiacal backdrop to a dark fable.”
Ash Hamilton is not only the owner of Horror-Fix.com, but also one of its major contributors. A long time horror movie enthusiast, Ash has lent his personality to radio and television and continues to support his favorite genre through his writing and art. He also loves beef jerky and puppies... and low-grade street-quality hallucinogens.
