Adelaide filmmakers bring drug busts and family drama to Sundance
Sundance Film Festival opened with premieres from two locally-made projects.
An Adelaide documentary about a charismatic former Texan narcotics cop who flipped allegiances and now coaches the public to stay ahead of the law is part of the South Australian contingent at the Sundance Film Festival.
Never Get Busted!, created by Adelaide filmmakers David Anthony Ngo and Erin Williams-Weir, is the story of Barry Cooper, a “brazen” activist against the war on drugs, who fled the United States for Brazil but now lives in the Philippines.
Ngo, the Malaysian Australian writer and producer of 2014’s One-Eyed Girl, starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey, and 2017 supernatural mystery Rabbit, says he and co-creator Williams-Weir were fascinated by Cooper when they saw him interviewed online.
“He’s larger than life, he has such an interesting story and you are always looking for a great character and a great journey,” says Ngo before flying out to snowy Sundance high in the mountains of Utah.
Cooper, who has a YouTube channel that guides drug users on how to skirt the law, had been approached many times by filmmakers, but none got further than optioning the rights.
Ngo broke through with Cooper because he was ready to start filming straight away, spending his own money to get the project to a point where Academy and Emmy award-winning producers John Battsek (Beckham) and Chris Smith (Tiger King) came on board. Funding support from the South Australian Film Corporation, Screen Australia, Pinnacle Films, Mind the Gap and Australian Production House followed later.
Adelaide filmmakers and Never Get Busted! co-creators Erin Williams-Weir and David Ngo. Photo: Supplied
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Exiled from his home country for the past 14 years, Cooper flew to Adelaide where he was interviewed for almost a week. That was five years ago, and Ngo says he was unprepared for dealing with such a mercurial personality.
“I have never met anyone like him. When he walks into a room, every eye is on him; he is very brazen and self-confident and has a certain charisma,” Ngo says.
“We knew there was something more there, and there was.”
A member of the church band where Cooper was once a pastor told Ngo there were three kinds of people in the world: those who love Barry Cooper, those who hate Barry Cooper and those who have never met Barry Cooper.
“That was very much our experience with the people we interviewed,” he said.
Cooper’s tips for drug users that he shared on YouTube came from his knowledge in the field as a decorated police officer who once busted large-scale operations.
Ngo says he and Williams-Weir went into the documentary with no agenda other than to tell a fascinating story.
“We came in with a very open mind and we were driven by the character. It’s a wild, stranger than fiction story,” he says.
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As well as critiquing anti-drug policing, Cooper also campaigns against police corruption, and the documentary explores a sting to expose narcotics and money that went missing in the course of a bust.
Ngo’s production interviewed a West Texas woman who was jailed for eight years in a case of mistaken identity that police refused to acknowledge. Cooper set up a reverse sting operation to find the truth, which forced the courts to order a retrial and triggered her release.
“Nobody would help her out; they tried to get the FBI involved; they tried to get a court appeal. But that’s when they found Barry Cooper,” Ngo says.
The documentary began as an episodic series but evolved into a full-length feature — although its Sundance entry remains in the Episodic Pilot Showcase, next to a documentary showing previously unseen footage of the late singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, It’s Never Over.
Australia has three entries in Sundance, which began last Thursday and runs until February 2, and two are from South Australia while the third, Michael Shank’s Together, co-stars Adelaide actor Damon Herriman with South Australian Sean Lahiff on board as an editor.
John Lithgow and Olivia Colman star in Adelaide director Sophie Hyde’s latest feature, Jimpa. Photo: Mark De Blok
Adelaide director Sophie Hyde, said she was thrilled to be returning to Sundance – where she has been a regular since 2014 when her debut feature 52 Tuesdays won best director – with her new film, Jimpa.
The follow-up to her Emma Thompson-starring 2022 feature Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Jimpa features Oscar-winner Olivia Colman alongside American actor John Lithgow, and Hyde’s child Aud Mason-Hyde.
Written by Matthew McCormack and Hyde and made with the support of the South Australian Film Corporation and the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, the film follows non-binary teenager, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) who visits her gay grandfather in Amsterdam.
Sightings of Colman around Adelaide caused a small stir last year during the film’s production, which completed shooting in Amsterdam.
Ngo said it was a privilege to be heading to Sundance, which has a reputation for unearthing new talent and had discovered some of his heroes including Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and Robert Rodriguez.
“It’s huge. It’s every filmmaker’s dream to make it onscreen at Sundance,” Ngo says. “One agent put it this way: ‘It’s the rarest air there is in the film industry’.”
Australian release dates for Never Get Busted! and Jimpa are yet to be announced.