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EXCLUSIVE: MindRiot Entertainment, the transatlantic indie behind Danielle Deadwyler’s Parallel, and the upcoming OceanGate pic Salvaged, is heading to the 2024 Summer Olympics with their subsequent characteristic, Four The Yard.  

As we reported final month, Four The Yard is a characteristic primarily based on the memoir of former professional skater Josh Swindell. At the Olympic video games, the MindRiot group, together with Justin MacGregor, Head of European Content, and firm founder Jonathan Keasey, will seize footage of competing road skaters for the pic. One Paris-bound skater signed up for the shoot is Canadian Olympic skater and X-Games gold medalist Ryan DeCenzo. DeCenzo has additionally signed on to be a marketing consultant on the characteristic. 

Keasey is presently adapting Swindell’s memoir, which has but to be printed. The former professional skater had beforehand been extensively thought to be the way forward for the game by grandees corresponding to Christian Hosoi, Tony Hawk, and Steve Caballero. He additionally crossed over into motocross and continues to be sponsored by Vans. In October 1995, nonetheless, Swindell was convicted of second-degree homicide within the killing of Keith Ogden, whom he beat to loss of life outdoors a bar in Azusa, California. He was sentenced to fifteen years to life in jail and was launched in 2012 after spending nearly 20 years behind bars. The case has been the middle of controversy over time, with George W. Trammell, the choose who presided over the case, later being charged and pleading responsible to federal corruption prices. 

“Our canvas doesn’t just start and stop when Swindell was sent to prison and then released for a hate crime the law confirms he didn’t commit. There is so much more here,” MacGregor stated of the movie. 

Keasey and MacGregor have stated the movie can even heart on the connection between Swindell and three shut associates he made throughout his time in jail, together with Jerome Dixon, who was launched after 21 years in jail for a homicide he maintains he didn’t commit. Dixon’s case has been excessive profile amongst jail reform activists.

“Shawshank Redemption, only fact, not fiction,” MacGregor stated Swindell’s story.

Four The Yard is a part of MindRiot’s upcoming slate of tasks, which incorporates Salvaged, co-produced by E. Brian Dobbins (The Blackening, Black-ish), and Druid Rising, which can be co-produced with Ireland’s Newgrange Pictures.

Keasey is repped by Circle of Confusion and legal professionals David Matlof and Adam Vitable of Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman and Dr. Justin MacGregor is Head of Film at Trinity College Dublin.