Director Joseph Zentil always knew he wanted to direct a feature film. Watching a close friend persevere through recovery following a major motorcycle accident proved the right inspiration for his feature directorial debut, “Born to Lose,” starring “Halloween” and “Oppenheimer” breakout Dylan Arnold, and playing in competition at the Raindance Film Festival.
The American drama follows Arnold’s Andy, a young biker with addiction issues living in a small Kentucky town. When his dad suddenly dies, Andy tries to take his place in the family business by tightening ties with the town’s drug kingpin. What happens is the opposite, with Andy racking up impossible debts and getting himself and loved ones in danger as he scrambles to find a sense of self-worth. The cast also includes “Love Story” star Sarah Pidgeon as Andy’s love interest, James Les Gros (“Good One”) as his mentor and Ambyr Childers (“The Master”) as his sister.
Speaking with Variety out of Raindance, director Zentil says “putting pen to paper” following his friend’s accident was “a cathartic, personal and very relatable experience.”
“We watched [our friend] persevere through this experience, rebuilding his life and his motorcycle piece by piece,” he recalls. “I felt there was a certain poetry to that and it was a bit of a canvas to incorporate some of the larger ideas we had. Whether that be the role inherited identity plays in Andy’s life as he determines what kind of man he really wants to be, or [how] building his bike personifies his ability to choose a more fulfilling path.”
