Trying to find funding for “Down the Arm of God” proved to be a difficult five-year ordeal for lead star and co-writer Caleb Landry Jones — one that brought the “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Get Out” actor to terms with the very real-world prejudices that his film grapples with.
“Some people were worried about any kind of re-enactment of anyone’s past. We were getting a lot of folks that felt what we were trying to do was not respectful, that we were getting into possible problems of white saviorism,” Jones tells Variety of the decision to cast real homeless people in Texas. “Other things would be simply that the cast wasn’t big enough. That my name isn’t big enough. ‘We need two or three other cast members that are stars!'”
When “Leon” director Luc Besson saw how much Jones was struggling to secure funding while working with him on the 2025 horror film “Dracula,” he decided to step in with funds and, essentially, save the film under his EuropaCorp producing banner. Now, “Down the Arm of God” will have its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Aug. 12.
Helmed by Peter Brunner, who directed Jones in 2018’s “To the Night,” Jones leads the cast as Nick, a pastor set on making a change when he arrives in a small Texas town and sees the homeless epidemic quietly happening in everyone’s backyard. However, he is swiftly met with pushback from the local community, especially after Nick invites the homeless encampment to sleep inside their church during the harsh winter.
