A docudrama on child fight clubs is set to be filmed near Columbia this summer.
The feature film “You Have the Right to Remain Violent” aims to expose the world of the illegal clubs, where adults make a profit by forcing minors to fight each other.
The film’s director, Dimas Bardales, says the docudrama style will “(have) you on the edge of your seat the whole time.”
“The film is based on real stories, kind of like a docudrama instead of a documentary sort of thing because some of the real subjects are kind of afraid to be on camera,” Bardales says. “It shows you things that you don’t really hear about, things that the media covers up, accidents that happen to kids and why some kids are taken away and never heard of.”
Producer Joel A. Greenberg says his inspiration for “Violent” came several years ago when he saw news stories about children being forced into a fighting situation.
“(The movie) is a very important story,” he says. “It’s based on truths, reality.”
Production is scheduled to begin in June. Along with Montgomery County, Missouri, the crew will also shoot in New Mexico, Massachusetts and possibly Montana.
Greenberg says the purpose of filming all over the country is to show that child fight clubs are a problem across America, not just isolated in one area.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in a big city, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a rural country setting or if you’re in the suburbs, it makes no difference,” Greenberg says. “It’s happening all over the place and it’s happening in all 50 states, and that’s why we’re showing some of them and we’re making it known that we’re in different states in the movie. We’re also showing that the problem is interconnected with the states.”
In order to help with funding, the producers say they plan to launch an Indiegogo campaign next week to raise the remaining $25,000 needed to finish the film.
Bardales, who is still a student at the New England Institute of Art, has already worked with Greenberg on two previous films. For this next collaboration, they’ve been contacting survivors of child fights on Facebook to be potential sources.
“This is not a violent movie,” Bardales says. “It’s a film that’s designed as a wake-up call to make people stop and say, ‘We must put an end to it.’ We want people to be angry at what is happening and we want them to take action against these people that are behind this. It’s not just a cock fight, it’s not just a dog fight, it’s a child fight, too, that’s happening out there. We just want people to wake up and realize that this is happening right in their backyard and they don’t even know it.”
The film’s title, “You Have the Right to Remain Violent,” is, as Greenberg says, “purposefully misleading.”
“We’re not encouraging violence, but what we’re doing is we’re saying that the kids in the film who are victims of this abuse have been given one right — and that is the right to remain violent,” Greenberg says.
“I’m hoping it pisses (the audience) off and makes them angry and that somebody starts looking into different fight clubs that are popping up all over the place,” he says. “And not all of them are fight clubs, some of them are just forcing kids to fight. I’m just hoping it calls attention to the problem.”
