Buster's Mal Heart (2017)

Interesting facts

Buster's Mal Heart is a 2016 surrealist mystery film written, directed, and edited by Sarah Adina Smith. It stars Rami Malek, DJ Qualls, Kate Lyn Sheil, Lin Shaye, Toby Huss, Sukha Belle Potter, Lily Gladstone, and Nicholas Pryor.

Production

After producing her first feature film The Midnight Swim, Smith knew that she wanted to create a story about a man and a mountain. She wrote the script at the Screenwriters Colony in Nantucket, MA. It was a non-traditional script, that combined illustrations with scene descriptions so that it almost read like a short story.

While finding financing came surprisingly easily for such an unusual script, the biggest challenge was finding someone to cast as the lead. Originally planning to cast a Latino actor due to the bilingual nature of the main character Jonah, Smith widened the search to expedite the casting process, eventually deciding on Rami Malek who she had seen in Short Term 12 and The Pacific. A tarot-card reading confirmed her casting choice.

Buster's Mal Heart was filmed near Glacier National Park and in Kalispell, MT, as well as on the ocean in open water. Originally, Smith planned to film in her home state of Colorado but, in the end, decided to shoot in Montana for the available state grant as well as the unique and dramatic landscape. The film was shot in 18 days.

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