Dirty Boy (2025) Celebrating UK Premiere at Raindance Film Festival this June

Graham McTavish, Susie Porter, Honor Gillies & Stan Steinbichler star in psychological folk thriller

Mystic Dream Story Studio and Stone Hill, in association with Saint Halo Productions, are delighted to announce that their psychological cult thriller, DIRTY BOY, will be celebrating its UK Premiere at the 33rd Raindance Film Festival on 22nd June. The film has been nominated for four awards at the festival; Best Performance in a UK Feature (Graham McTavish), Best UK Feature, Best Director of a UK Feature (Doug Rao) and Best UK Cinematography.

DIRTY BOY marks Doug Rao’s feature-length directorial debut, which he also wrote and co-produced. The film stars Stan Steinbichler (Zero Chill, Vienna Blood, Eismayer), Susie Porter (Gold, Wentworth Prison, Cargo), Honor Gillies (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) and Graham McTavish (The Witcher, Outlander, The Hobbit). The film was produced by Giles Alderson (The Stranger in Our Bed, Wolves of War, The Dare), Sarah Ann Grill (Slammer, Solitary), and Marek Lichtenberg (The Final 45), who also stars in the film.

Raised in an oppressive cult, a reclusive schizophrenic discovers that he’s being framed by the cult leaders for a series of ritualistic murders and must prove his innocence by saving their next victim and destroying the evil sect from within.

Director’s Statement

“Dirty Boy was written from a place of intense darkness – and I wanted to find the light and the humour within it. I want to explore the sense that complex understandings are often borne out of suffering.

I wanted to experiment with identity as a fluctuating concept – can anyone really define themselves as one persona when there are so many versions of ‘the self’?

Isaac in Dirty Boy has created an ‘alter’ that his subconscious has formed to process forgotten traumas – but which one is really him?

As someone says of Isaac’s tendency to blame his alter for his bad behaviour: ‘He’s you, you asshole, he’s you!’ In Dirty Boy, we also explore both the beauty and the villainy that religious doctrine can inspire.

I am delighted with the level of cast I have for my debut feature and getting to work in such a stunning place as the ‘Ausseerland/Saltzkammergut’ in Austria, famously used as a backdrop for The Sound of Music and Spectre adds unbelievable value to the look of the film – a paradisiacal backdrop to a dark fable.”