Slamdance Film Festival 2009

When down-on-his-luck Sam Bailey takes a wrong turn on a remote country road, he ends up with more than a little dirt to wash off his shoes after a miserable farmwife’s hope for a better life becomes his worst nightmare. After Sam’s greedy Russian wife discovers his deadly secret, she ups the ante with her own crazy plot - playing with Sam's life to cover her bet. An offbeat dark comedy with overtones of film noir and western genres, The Ante tells the story of a man’s absurd gamble to save his innocence. Three desperate people who bet everything they have in a brainless high-stakes game of loser-loses-all.

One of the most incompetent heroes you’ll ever see, and two women you hope you’ll never encounter in a story where you’re as equally struck by the characters’ bad choices as you are by the stunning visuals. I laughed a lot at this film, and most of those chuckles were the kind where I nodded as I laughed – because I got it, and I know the filmmakers got it, but I was positive that no one in their created world got it. Awesome.

- Drea Clark, Executive Director/Chair of Feature Narrative Programming