Ahead of the film’s release in July, Utopia dropped the teaser trailer for award-winning filmmakers Bill and Turner Ross’s Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, an official selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival.
The film billed as a “bold, boundary-blurring ode to a dive bar” will screen in a series of creative special virtual events leading up to a release in July.
In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, it’s last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. That’s the premise, at least; the reality is as unreal as the world the regulars are escaping from. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a mosaic of disparate lives, teetering between dignity and debauchery, reckoning with the past as they face an uncertain future, and singing as their ship goes down.
“We’re extremely happy to partner with Utopia,” said Bill Ross. “At every step they’ve welcomed our weirdo ideas and pushed them even further. We felt like folks may want the experience of being in a bar and that community right now, so we hoped to move quickly to release the film, and Utopia didn’t blink.”
The film will kick off with a limited first-look sneak preview screening on May 30, tickets are available now to 50 people on a first-come first-served basis.
On National Dive Bar Day, July 7, Utopia will host a series of special one-day only virtual screenings of the film benefiting the USBG Foundation’s Bartender Emergency Assistance Program COVID-19 Relief Fund. More information on these screenings and following rollout beginning July 10 will be announced in the coming weeks.
“This is a unique film in a strange time and we wanted more than anything to share it with the people, offer a window into a way of life that seems foreign at the moment, and give back to those real life people who have been there for us through a lot of ups and downs – our bartenders!” added Turner Ross. “This is a story about the end of things as we know them, and the uncertain beginnings that follow. It is a story about camaraderie and commiseration – of coming together and sharing space.”