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by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | June 19, 2020
Damian joined Oli Bell to talk about his upcoming movie Dream Horse based on the remarkable story of Janet Vokes and Dream Alliance. Originally to be released in April but delayed due to CoVid-19, Dream Horse will now be in theaters September 4, 2020.
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Comments Off on Dream Horse to Open Sarasota Film Festival – March 9, 2020
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | March 9, 2020
The Sarasota Film Festival will kick off this year with opening night film Dream Horse. The 22nd annual festival runs from March 27 through April 5 in Sarasota, Florida. The 2020 film schedule is coming soon and tickets go on sale for the general public on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 12:00 noon.
For more information or ticket sales, please visit Sarasota Film Festival here
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by Isabel Shaw | Radio Times | March 9, 2020
Radio Times is giving away 5,000 tickets to see Dream Horse! Click here and enter code BDQ245 to download and print your free ticket(s) for the preview screening of the film on Monday, March 23, 2020. Doors open at 6:00 pm and movie begins at 6:30 pm. Tickets are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so book now to avoid missing out!
Here is the list of participating Cineworld theatres below:
Ashton Under Lyne
Basildon
Belfast
Birmingham NEC
Bolton
Bristol
Cardiff
Castleford
Crawley
Enfield
Feltham
Glasgow Renfrew Street
Ipswich
Milton Keynes
Newcastle
Nottingham
Poole
Sheffield
Stevenage
Wandsworth
To gain admittance, tickets should be presented to the box office along with a copy of this page of Radio Times. ID’s may be requested.
For more information, visit Radio Times
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Will Close Out the RiverRun International Film Festival – Feb 29, 2020
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 29, 2020
This year’s RiverRun International Film Festival will close with comedy-drama Dream Horse starring Damian Lewis and Toni Collette.
The RiverRun International Film Festival is a regional event based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and is one of the premiere film festivals in the southeastern United States. The 22nd annual RiverRun will be held March 26 – April 5, 2020.
The closing night film Dream Horse will be screened at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts on Sunday, April 5, 2020 from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
RiverRun’s 11-day Festival programming regularly includes a selection of family-friendly, independent, international and celebrity driven films, attracting diverse audiences – which include local film aficionados, young families, niche audiences and cultural tourists.
In all, audiences will be able to choose among 77 feature films and 96 shorts from 42 countries, Most movies in the festival will be screened in Winston-Salem, including some screenings at a new location for the festival, Marketplace Cinema. Some movies will also be shown at RED Cinemas in Greensboro.
Tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. March 4, 2020 at the Stevens Center box office. All regular screenings for the festival are $12 for adults and $10 for students, with $6 matinees Monday through Friday before 5 p.m. Ticket packages are also available.
For more information on films and tickets, go to riverrunfilm.com/ or call 336-721-1945.
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Comments Off on Retired Horse Dream Alliance Will Be Guest of Honor at Chepstow Race Course – Feb 26, 2020
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 26, 2020
To celebrate the upcoming release of the new movie Dream Horse, which is based on the true story of a horse named Dream Alliance, the legendary horse himself will return 10 years later as Guest of Honor and parade in the winner’s enclosure at Chepstow Race Course on Monday, April 13, 2020. He is one of the most celebrated horses in racing, bred on an allotment, who went on to win the biggest race in Wales, the Coral Welsh Grand National, 2009. The retired champ will hopefully be available to meet his fans throughout the day.
Dream Horse is inspired by Dream Alliance’s historic win and stars Damian Lewis, Toni Collette, Owen Teale and Joanna Page. Get ready for the feel-good film of the spring, as Dream Horse hits UK cinemas on April 17, shortly after Chepstow’s family fun day to coincide with the launch of the movie.
Chepstow’s gates open at 12:00 p.m., with first race at 2:00 p.m. and last race at 5:30 p.m. Children aged 17 and under enter free. To join in on the popular Easter Monday Family Race Day and for more information about tickets, please visit Chepstow Racing and Events here.
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Will Close The Cleveland International Film Festival – Feb 20, 2020
by Laura DeMarco | Cleveland.com| February 20, 2020 – and –
by Scott Suttell | Crain’s Cleveland Business | February 20, 2020
The 44th annual Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) has announced its opening and closing night films. The festival, which runs from Wednesday, March 25 to Sunday, April 5, 2020 will open with the English dramedy Military Wives and will close it’s final year at Tower City Cinemas at 7 p.m. with Dream Horse, a Welsh movie about Dream Alliance, an unlikely racehorse bred by small-town bartender played by Toni Collette.
Dream Horse, which also stars Damian Lewis, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month. CIFF had this to say of its Closing Night choice:
“With very little money and no experience, Jan convinces her neighbors to chip in their meager earnings to help raise Dream in the hopes he can compete with the racing elites. The group’s investment pays off as Dream rises through the ranks with grit and determination and goes on to race in the Welsh Grand National, showing the heart of a true champion.”
“It’s a great last film to screen at Tower City,” says Bill Guentzler, CIFF artistic director. “It’s a very inspiring film that shows a group of people can come together and do what they dream of and succeed.”
Continue reading Dream Horse Will Close The Cleveland International Film Festival – Feb 20, 2020
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Review: Hollywood Reporter – Jan 28, 2020
by Leslie Felperin | Hollywood Reporter | January 28, 2020
Toni Collette and Damian Lewis play members of a syndicate formed to raise a thoroughbred in this comedy-drama set in Wales and based on a true story.
Anyone who saw director Louise Osmond’s 2015 documentary Dark Horse, winner of the audience award at Sundance that year, knew it was a racing certainty that this almost-too-good-to-be-true story would get made into a feature film someday. Some critics even had casting suggestions: Jim Broadbent was mentioned a couple of times for the role of Brian “Daisy” Vokes, husband of Jan Vokes (Imelda Staunton? one critic mused), who was the mastermind behind the plan to breed a racehorse and pay for its keep and training through weekly subscriptions. The members of this syndicate were mostly clients at the local village pub where Jan worked as a barmaid, in a former mining village in South Wales.
Like horse racing, filmmaking is a high-risk gamblers’ game, but the team behind Dream Horse, the resulting dramatization of the Vokes’ story, have surely bred a winner with this endearing, determinedly crowd-pleasing adaptation. Even without knowing the real-life facts (in the U.K., especially in Wales, the story’s well known), the outcome could very easily be predicted by anyone who’s ever seen a British movie about plucky, working-class folk in a provincial setting triumphing over odds or at least exceeding expectations. But thanks to a well-assembled package, smoothly directed by Euros Lyn (best known for his TV work, including Doctor Who, Broadchurch and an episode of Black Mirror), and good casting all around, crowned by the reliably excellent Toni Collette as Jan, this has every chance of sprinting to victory at the box office finish line.
Continue reading Dream Horse Review: Hollywood Reporter – Jan 28, 2020
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Review: Variety – Jan 26, 2020
by Dennis Harvey | Variety | January 26, 2020
Louise Osmond’s 2015 Sundance audience winner “Dark Horse” was one of those documentaries that played like a crowdpleasing fiction, its real-life tale of underdog triumph had such a conventionally satisfying narrative arc. And indeed, the new “Dream Horse” proves that same material is indeed ready-made for dramatization.
Euros Lyn’s feature springs few true surprises within its familiar genre, one that U.K. filmmakers have specialized in at least since “The Full Monty.” Still, this is a well-cast, artfully handled effort that exercises sufficient restraint to really earn its requisite laughter and tears. Likely to have broad appeal, with strong word-of-mouth from its own Park City premiere, it looks to be one of the strongest commercial prospects at Sundance this year.
Toni Collette is in fine form as Jan Vokes, a middle-aged South Wales native whose life in declining former mining town Cefn Fforest has hit a seemingly permanent slump. Her children have left the nest, arthritic husband Brian (Owen Teale) mostly just parks himself in front of the telly, and her two jobs (bartending at the local social club/pub and cashiering at a big-box store) are joyless dead ends. She and Brian have always been keen on animals, each raising award-winning livestock from an early age. But currently they’re down to some geese, a lazy dog and the odd goat.
One day a newish patron (Damian Lewis) at the pub, bragging about his purported glories as part of a racehorse investing syndicate, piques Jan’s interest. After doing some research, she informs the incredulous Brian that they’re buying a brood mare, then actually goes out and does it. The next thing is to draft local investors to fund the considerable costs of orchestrating insemination by a racing stallion, raising the offspring, training, et al., with only the remotest chance of arriving at a winning competitor.
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Review: Toni Collette and Damian Lewis Lead This Crowd-Pleasing Sports Drama – Jan 26, 2020
by Ben Pearson | Slash Film | January 26, 2020
Jane (Toni Collette) is tired. Tired of working multiple jobs in small-town Wales, tired of her boring husband Brian (Owen Teale) who bums around watching TV all day, tired of taking care of her aging parents, tired of the drudgery her life has become. So when Howard (Damian Lewis), a former hotshot racehorse owner, becomes a regular at the bar where she works, Jane is inspired to try her own hand at raising a racehorse – but she needs some help to pull it off. Based on a 2015 documentary called Dark Horse, director Euros Lyn’s Dream Horse is an inspirational, winning sports drama about a small town with big hopes.
The trouble with Jane’s plan is that racehorses are expensive. So she reaches out to the townsfolk to see if they want to form a syndicate, an ownership collective in which they all pay £10 a week for shared rights to the future winnings of their still non-existent racehorse. A coterie of characters shows up to participate, including retirees, local small business owners, and even the town drunk.
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by Olivia Buxton | Sunday Express | January 26, 2020
It’s a long way from an old slag heap in a Welsh mining village to the red carpets of Hollywood. But, then again, how often has a horse bought on a whim for £300 beaten the multi-millionaires of the sport of kings? And all that after undergoing a revolutionary stem cell treatment to overcome a life-threatening injury which was feared would stop him ever racing again.
Now the rags-to-riches story of Dream Alliance and how he brought hope to one of Britain’s most deprived spots is a film with Homeland star Damian Lewis, Gavin & Stacey‘s Joanna Page and hit Broadway actress Toni Collette. It was even screened at the swish Sundance Film Festival in Utah on Friday.
It all began in Cefn Fforest working men’s club when Jan Vokes overheard tax advisor Howard Davies (played by Lewis) saying how he once ran a racehorse syndicate. It had cost him £5,000 and he’d promised wife Angela (played by Page) that he would never do anything like it again. But Jan was interested.
She cleaned at Asda and at a school and worked as a barmaid – but didn’t see why she couldn’t breed a racehorse. She had an allotment on a slag heap, as a child had watched her father breed budgies and had bred pigeons and whippets herself.
Howard managed to convince his wife that they wouldn’t lose money and found an aging stallion for stud.
Joanna Page says it was a joy to star alongside Damian Lewis in Dream Horse,
“Damian Lewis plays my husband, Howard, and we have a syndicate in this Welsh village, where we live and we breed a racing horse. Damian’s character is one of the main ones in the syndicate but Angela is not very supportive.”
“But Damian was so lovely and funny to work with. He’s brilliant.”
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Sundance Review – Jan 25, 2020
by Tim Grierson | Screen Daily | January 25, 2020
Toni Collette is a sure thing in Dream Horse, a thoroughly predictable but ultimately winning underdog sports movie. Based on the true story of a group of down-on-their-luck Welsh villagers who pool their assets to sponsor a racehorse, the movie goes a long way on the strength of the Oscar-nominated actress’s emotional performance as an unfulfilled wife and mother who decides to bet on herself. Director Euros Lyn overdoes the feel-good trappings, but it’s hard to deny the genuine sentiment that the movie stirs up.
This Sundance premiere will appeal to general audiences who just want a little uplift from their movies when it opens in the UK on April 17 and in the US in May. Collette fans will be pleased as well, and horse lovers should be charmed by the title character’s soulful eyes and knack for coming up big during the story’s most critical moments.
Set in the economically depressed Welsh community of Cefn Fforest, Dream Horse stars Collette as Jan Vokes, who works at a co-op and a bar to make ends meet. (Her husband Brian, played by Owen Teale, is out of work because of crippling arthritis.) With their kids grown, Jan (who’s always adored animals) is having trouble coping as an empty-nester — which partly explains her interest in supporting a racehorse, which might be a financial windfall and, more importantly, a way to add meaning to what she feels is a pretty humdrum life.
This real-life tale was previously the subject of the 2015 Sundance documentary Dark Horse, and there’s no mystery to why the material would lend itself to a likeable feature film. Recalling indie hits such as The Full Monty, Dream Horse is principally a salute to small-town characters who take a chance, in the process finding personal satisfaction. The movie’s target audience will want to believe that these downtrodden people can beat the odds, and Dream Horse does nothing to upset those expectations.
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Comments Off on Dream Horse Video Clip – Jan 24, 2020
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | January 24, 2020
It’s finally here – the first clip of Dream Horse was released today by Bleecker Street. You can also view Dream Horse photos in our Gallery here and here. To view the official movie poster and trailer, click here. Dream Horse opens in the UK on April 17, 2020 and in the USA on May 1, 2020. Check your local listings!
The film tells the true story of Jan Vokes, (Academy Award® nominee Toni Collette) a Welsh cleaner and bartender, who decides to breed and rear a race horse. One night, a chance encounter with an arrogant customer, Howard Davies (Damian Lewis), a former racehorse syndicate leader, inspires her to take on a new challenge. She persuades her neighbors and friends to contribute financially to the scheme. The group’s unlikely investment plan pays off as the horse rises through the ranks and puts them in a race for the national championship.