Caleb Landry Jones's "Down the Arm of God" Premieres at Locarno After Five-Year Battle
Caleb Landry Jones walked into the Piazza Grande on 12 August with a film he spent five years fighting to make. Down the Arm of God, an indie drama about a newly ordained pastor sent to a small town near the Texas Panhandle, had its world premiere at the 79th Locarno Film Festival, screening outdoors at 21:30 in its original English with Italian and French subtitles (Locarno Film Festival).
Jones co-wrote the screenplay with director Peter Brunner and stars as Nick, a minister from Dallas assigned to a rural community that tests his faith in ways the synopsis politely leaves unstated. The film runs 106 minutes and was shot as a France–USA co-production in colour DCP 2K, with copyright held by EuropaCorp — the banner founded by Luc Besson, who is among the producers (The Hollywood Reporter; Locarno Film Festival).
This is the second collaboration between Brunner and Jones, following their 2018 film To the Night. Jones, a native Texan, described the project as a five-year battle to reach the screen, speaking at a press conference during the festival (Variety; Instagram). Locarno's artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro secured the premiere for the Piazza Grande, the festival's 8,000-seat open-air venue — the kind of stage that turns a small indie into an event (Variety).
The ensemble cast stretches well beyond its lead. India Marie Cross, Nick Stahl, Mena Suvari and a large company of Texas-rooted performers — including Whoopie Campfield, Dene Valentine, Amanda Davis, Atlas Fulton, Fable Fulton, Glenamzye Norment, Mike Johnson, Bobbie Lo Fruge, Crystal Salazar, Cassandra Fuentes, Kip Billups and Rhonda Bennett — populate the town around Nick's faltering ministry. John Jones rounds out the billing (The Hollywood Reporter).
Locarno's 79th edition has been a showcase for the film's arrival. The festival, held each August in the Swiss lakeside town of Locarno, serves as both a public celebration and an industry marketplace where sales agents and distributors gauge which titles might travel beyond the Alps.
For Down the Arm of God, the Piazza Grande premiere puts a France–USA co-production with EuropaCorp backing in front of one of the largest outdoor cinema audiences in the world. What comes next — a sales deal, a distribution date, a streaming home — will be decided in the weeks that follow.
