Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists. Donate today and help bring Come Back Kidd to life.
 

Logline

The night before musician Billie Kidd launches her comeback tour alongside Kelly, her second born rockstar daughter, Kelly slips into a coma. With life and tour on hold, the entire family contends with old grief, new uncertainty and the true meaning of a comeback.

Synopsis

Come Back Kidd is a multi-generational story about a family of musicians contending with illness, recovery, artistry and evolution. The matriarch of the family, Billie Kidd, is a singular guitarist who spent the better part of the seventies and eighties on the road with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

Billie leaves the road to raise her two young daughters as her husband has lost his battle with cancer. Widowed and father-less, the grief-stricken trio got by making music, telling stories, and playing make believe. Burdened by old habits from the road, Billie self-medicates, leaning heavily on her first born daughter, Freddie, while channeling her artistry and ambition towards her second born daughter, Kelly, a musician and rockstar in the making.

The film opens in the famed First Avenue club in downtown Minneapolis where a grown Kelly announces her mom’s ‘comeback tour’.

Simultaneously, Freddie’s teenage daughter Sam, a scientist and burgeoning musician herself, finds her dad who has overdosed on opioids. Sam revives him but is traumatized; she and Freddie pack their bags and move back into Freddie’s childhood home where Billie and Kelly reside.

Everyone under one roof, tensions arise. Lapsing on her meds, Kelly slips into a diabetic coma. Freddie goes into overdrive with care taking and rekindles a flame with an old love; Billie resorts to the bottle, and attempts to reconfigure the tour; Sam seeks out her grandmother Billie to teach her how to play guitar and drums while she processes her fear, frustration, artistry and maturation.

Billie and Sam engage over music and life lessons. Sam learns guitar and becomes lead singer in her own band. Freddie finds freedom and autonomy, her husband moves through recovery and Kelly awakens — the entire family makes a comeback.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Kate Nowlin — Writer/Director/Producer/Actor
As an award winning filmmaker, actor and Yale Drama graduate, Kate’s feature film, Blood Stripe, received critical acclaim and recognition as “one to watch” by Movie Maker Magazine. Chief film critic for the LA Times, Kenneth Turan, said this: “Made with passion, integrity and skill, Blood Stripe is American Independent filmmaking at its most effective.” Kate both wrote and starred in the project, co-created with Remy Auberjonois. Her most recent grant-funded short film, Lemon Shark won multiple awards with Kate again serving as writer/director and actor.

Come Back Kidd marks Kate’s feature film directorial debut, as well as having written and co-starring in the project. Among Kate’s many other film and tv credits (working with directors Craig Zobel, Jason Reitman, Miguel Arteta and more) she most recently originated a role at The Public Theater of NYC in a world premiere play by Pulitzer Prize Winner Suzan Lori-Parks.

Radium Cheung — Producer/Cinematographer
Named “10 Cinematographers to Watch” by Variety, and “10 Filmmakers to Watch” by Independent Magazine, Radium Cheung, HKSC is a director, producer and cinematographer. He has lensed and co-produced acclaimed motion pictures Starlet (SxSW 2012) and Tangerine (Sundance 2015) with Dir Sean Baker. In recent years he’s focused on directing scripted TV series including The Sinner (Netflix), Hightown (STARZ) and American Rust: Broken Justice (Amazon) 

Schuyler Weiss — Executive Producer
Schuyler Weiss, an Academy Award nominee, is based in Gold Coast, Australia and New York. He’s been with Baz Luhrmann’s Bazmark since 2005, now as Managing Director, producing partner, and co-executive for Elvis. He’s also working on Hulu and Disney+’s limited series Faraway Downs. Schuyler co-produced Kate Nowlin and Remy Auberjonois’ critically acclaimed and award winning feature film, Blood Stripe.

Llewellyn Wells — Executive Producer
Llewellyn is an Emmy award winning producer of such shows as The West Wing, Animal Kingdom and Designated Survivor. Llewellyn has spent 28 years working in the entertainment industry. In his early career he worked on such highly acclaimed independent films as Bagdad Café, The Grifters, Dogfight and Under Suspicion. Llewellyn won five Emmy awards, a Golden Globe and two Producers Guild awards as one of the original producers of The West Wing.

Most recently, he produced Animal Kingdom for WBTV/TNT, Amazing Stories and Last Days of Ptolemy Grey for Apple TV and The Emperor of Ocean Park for MGM+/WBTV.

Make a donation to Come Back Kidd.

Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].