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BIFF hosts regional premiere of award-winning "Down with the King" - new movie by filmmaker Diego Ongaro

Freddie Gibbs as Money Merc in "Down with the King"
Breaker Studios/ Inside Voices
Freddie Gibbs as Money Merc in "Down with the King"
Filmmaker Diego Ongaro in a Zoom interview
WAMC
/
WAMC
Filmmaker Diego Ongaro in a Zoom interview with Sarah LaDuke

In the new film “Down with the King” directed by Diego Ongaro and co-written by Ongaro and Xabi Molia: rap star Money Merc is struggling with the music industry and the pressures of being a celebrity. He leaves the city to re-evaluate his career while immersing himself in a small farm town in the mountains. The film stars real-life Grammy nominated rapper Freddie Gibbs in a captivating debut film performance.

“Down with the King” is the second feature from Diego Ongaro, whose feature debut “Bob and the Trees” premiered at Sundance in 2015. “Down with the King” premiered at Cannes this past summer.

The Berkshire International Film Festivalis hosting the regional debut of “Down with the King” at The Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on Thursday, December 9 at 7 p.m. Diego Ongaro joins us.

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Sarah has been a public radio producer for over fifteen years. She grew up in Saranac Lake, New York where she worked part-time at Pendragon Theatre all through high school and college. She graduated from UAlbany in 2006 with a BA in English and started at WAMC a few weeks later as a part-time board-op in the control room. Through a series of offered and seized opportunities she is now the Senior Contributing Producer of The Roundtable and Producer of The Book Show. During the main thrust of the Covid-19 pandemic shut-down, Sarah hosted a live Instagram interview program "A Face for Radio Video Series." On it, Sarah spoke with actors, musicians, comedians, and artists about the creative activities they were accomplishing and/or missing.
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