Text by Ruth Melville
Photo by Jessica Ray Harrison

In Diego Ongaro’s new movie, “Down With the King,” a famous rapper, played by real-life rapper Freddie Gibbs, comes to live in the rural Berkshire countryside while he works on his new album. Dissatisfied with the pressures of his professional life, he becomes friends with a neighboring farmer and wants to take part in his country life. 

The idea of a famous rapper taking up farm chores might seem at first glance like a shaggy dog story or a buddy comedy, but in Ongaro’s telling, the story—while not without elements of humor—is a moving depiction of a man trying to figure out what he wants in life.

Ongaro first got the idea for “Down With the King” 10 years ago, when he heard an interview with an 18-year-old French rapper who had had a great success with his first album but was feeling crushed by the pressure to come up with an equally successful follow-up. The young man’s description of his situation struck a chord with the filmmaker.

In the meantime, inspired by living in Sandisfield, Mass. (he has since moved to Norfolk), Ongaro made his first full-length film, “Bob and the Trees,” about a farmer and logger who struggles to earn enough money during the harsh New England winter. Wanting to tell another story in this landscape, but this time with an outsider as the protagonist, Ongaro remembered the young Frenchman. 

In the new film, the rapper Mercury Maxwell (or Money Merc) is played by well-known rapper Freddie Gibbs in his first acting role. To find the right person to play the part, Ongaro watched a lot of interviews and music videos. When he saw a video of Gibbs, he was impressed by his “incredible charisma, his machine-gun improvisation. He was a fast talker, funny, but with a gangster side.” In a subsequent Zoom interview, Gibbs told him that he was eager to try acting and felt he could really relate to the character of Mercury.

Mercury’s girlfriend in the movie is played by Jamie Neumann (“Lovecraft Country”) and his manager by David Krumholtz (“The Deuce,” “Numb3rs”), but Bob is played by Bob Tarasuk, who is a real-life farmer in Sandisfield and the Bob of “Bob and the Trees.” Ongaro likes the mix of professional and nonprofessional actors. He doesn’t work from a traditional script, and although the scenes are blocked out in advance, a lot of the dialogue is improvised by the actors. Ongaro likes the spontaneity this gives, and feels, especially with nonactors, that it allows their real selves to come through in their performance.

Ongaro also likes “movies that take their time.” In “Down With the King,” the setting and the characters’ interactions are as important as the plot. In one scene, we get to watch Mercury working alone in his rented house, rapping, writing and recording as he tries to complete his album; in another, Bob shows Mercury how to butcher a pig. 

The film was shot in the Berkshires in October and November of 2019, during the pandemic lockdown. In some ways, this was a good time to make the movie, Ongaro says. For one thing, with all touring canceled, Gibbs was at home and free to try something different.

But lockdown also made everything more difficult and expensive. During the filming, the approximately 16-member crew stayed in rented houses in Norfolk and the Berkshires. Everyone had to be tested three times a week, and there were nurses and a Covid supervisor on hand at all times. Ongaro is proud that the actors and crew were able to pull together through all the difficulties and finish filming in four weeks.

Needless to say, Ongaro and his team were delighted when the film was chosen to appear at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The festival is organized in various sections in addition to the main competition, and “Down With the King” was shown in the ACID section (Association du Cinema Independant pour Sa Diffusion/Association for Independent Cinema and its Distribution). Ongaro explained that ACID is a newer section at Cannes, run by filmmakers, and the selection committee looks for up-and-comers with strong voices.

After being canceled in 2020, the festival was smaller this year, with fewer attendees, but with lots of movies to show, of which Ongaro found time to see a handful (some good, some bad, he says). Most of his time was taken up with interviews and screenings of his own film, although—this was at Cannes after all—there were some parties and trips to the beach, too. Some of the cast and crew were there to celebrate as well, along with their spouses and friends.

Ongaro and his production company are still looking for a distributor for “Down With the King,” and as yet there is no date for the American premiere, but Ongaro hopes the film will come out sometime next year.

As they say, watch this space.