Brad Battersby’s The Joyriders is a hard-boiled Christmas tale about three homeless teens who kidnap a suicidal 67-year-old retiree (Martin Landau) and hold him hostage in his Cadillac during a week-long joyride.

The film begins as 16-year-old Cam (In and Out’s Shawn Hatosy) and 15-year-old Jodi (A Thousand Acres’ Elisabeth Moss), watch the abandoned car they live in get firebombed. They then meet 17-year-old Crystal (New York Stories’ Heather McComb), on the run after slicing her foster dad with a straight razor. Spotting Gordon (Landau) in a shopping mall parking lot, the teens hijack his car and take him hostage. By the end, the troubled teens wind up restoring his will to live.

Battersby majored in film and theater at Stanford and began his working career as a commercial director in New York. After his first short, The Morning During, sold to HBO, he became a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute. Battersby’s first feature, Blue Desert, won a Best New Director award at the 1991 Palm Springs festival and launched him as a studio screenwriter. He’s also written and directed episodes of the Fox Network drama "Sweet Valley High." He made Joyriders by hooking up with producers Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, known for such films as Desperately Seeking Susan, River’s Edge, Eight Men Out, How To Make An American Quilt, Love Field and and HBO’s "And the Band Played On." The duo financed Joyriders through Norann Entertainment, a new indie entry capitalized by Texas businessman Norm Miller and his wife Anne, and run by Cindy Bond, who is producing with Sanford/Pillsbury.

Joyriders shot for six weeks in L.A. this past spring and wrapped with several days of establishing exteriors in Portland. The film should be done by Labor Day; all rights are available.

Cast: Martin Landau, Shawn Hatosy, Elisabeth Moss, Heather McComb, Kris Kristofferson, Diane Venora. Crew: Executive Producers, Anne Miller, Norm Miller; Producers, Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford, Cindy Bond; Co-Producers, Ted Voltmer, June Petrie; Director, Bradley Battersby; Screenwriters, Jeff Spiegel, Bradley Battersby; Cinematographer, Steve Fierberg; Production Designer, Amy Ancona; Casting, Mali Finn; Editor, Terilyn Shropshire; Costume Designer, Sara Jane Slotnick; Music Supervisor, Anne Kline for Tri-Tone; Composer, J.A.C. Redford. Contact: Midge Sanford/Sarah Pillsbury, 1459 Sixth Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401. Tel: (310) 393-5225, Fax: (310) 393-8665.

Backward Looks, Far Corners - Christopher Munch
Coming Soon - Colette Burson
The Dharma Brats: Growing Up Buddhist in America - Bari Pearlman & Jesse Thompson
Fiona - Amos Kollek
A Good Baby - Katherine Dieckmann
The Joyriders - Bruce Battersby
Park Day - Sterling Macer, Jr.
Roberta - Eric Mandelbaum
Sally - David Goldsmith
Spring Forward - Tom Gillroy