The Death Tour

Runtime: 90', 44'

Expected release: November, 2023

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: $615.500 (92% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: A list Festivals, European Distributors

Synopsis:

The Death Tour is a feature documentary following professional wrestlers on “the hardest tour in indie wrestling”. For weeks, these wrestlers travel across frozen lakes to put on shows for Canada’s most remote Indigenous communities. Sleeping on floors and eating canned food, this trip will force each wrestler to draw from their checkered pasts if they dare dream of a future in wrestling.

Director’s profile:

Stephan Peterson (Director/ Writer) is a Canadian Screen Award nominated documentary director, shooter, and story-editor. Since 2014, Stephan has been traveling the world shooting and directing TV series for CBC, Discovery, History, Nat Geo, Velocity and Motor Trends. Stephan’s experience working as a both a director and story editor on series like Big Rig Warriors (History), Hellfire Heroes (Discovery), Mega Trains (Discovery) and Restoration Garage (Velocity) has given him the ability to follow story in the field and to carefully craft it in the edit suite. Having directed on Ice Road Truckers (History), Cold Water Cowboys (Discovery), and Licence to Drill (Discovery), Stephan has proven he has what it takes to work with multiple characters in extreme conditions. This experience will serve him well in the filming of Death Tour, his first feature documentary.

Co-Director’s profile:

Sonya Ballantyne is a Swampy Cree writer and filmmaker from the Misipawistik Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Her work focuses on contemporary and futuristic portrayals of Indigenous women and girls. Her published works include children’s book Kerri Berry Lynn as well as contributions to anthologies such as Pros and Comic Cons and Resurgence. She has written for numerous creative properties such as Sesame Street, The Walking Dead: LAST MILE and CTV’s Acting Good. She was recently nominated for a Writer’s Guild of Canada award for her work on Acting Good. The Death Tour is her feature directorial debut.

Producer’s profile:

Sergeo Kirby has been producing, directing and filming award-winning feature documentaries for two decades. Notable credits include THE FORBIDDEN REEL, ABU, SHINERS, PATSY, H2Oil, ROADSWORTH, WAL-TOWN, and FENNARIO: THE GOOD FIGHT. Sergeo is the founding member of Loaded Pictures, a Montreal based documentary film company focusing on complex social documentaries. His documentaries have been seen on CBC, the Documentary Channel, GlobalTV, Canal D, Discovery, the Sundance Channel, and Bravo! among others and have been screened at hundreds of film festivals around the world. In 2017 ABU won the best documentary prize at 14 film festivals and SHINERS, released in the same year, won best documentary at 5 film festivals.