“I’ve got a very young daughter, and when I was writing this I couldn’t help but look at Brexit in the U.K. and Donald Trump in the U.S. and try to see the world through the eyes of those who will one day take it over,” Ninian Doff, writer and director of Get Duked!, explained in an interview with Amazon Prime Video. “My concern was seeing that the people at the top only care about themselves instead of thinking about who will inherit the planet, and what the opportunities are for those people coming up in the world.”
At the heart of Get Duked!, an original film by Amazon Prime Video, are messages about politics, identity, friendship, and empowering youth to question the establishment – delivered with a much-needed dose of satire. The story centers around four teenage boys living in Scotland who enroll in the Duke of Edinburgh, a real-life program akin to the Scouts in the U.S. Instead of kicking back and smoking up in the Scottish Highlands, they find themselves off path and hunted by villains determined to ruin their lives.
“Get Duked,” an invented slang term meaning to screw the establishment, is as politically aware as it is hilarious. “I feel strongly that if we’re going to engage the next generation, we need to make protest movies that don’t feel preachy… It had to have an element of rebellion to it – a rallying cry for teenagers, because their voice matters, and the people above them don’t always know what the hell they’re talking about.”
This marks Doff’s feature debut after working on award-winning music videos and shorts with the likes of Migos and Mykki Blanco. After premiering in the U.S. at SXSW in 2019, Get Duked! picked up the SXSW Audience Award in the Midnight Section, and later went on to pick up awards at a few other film festivals. Another noteworthy part of the film is the music, with tracks from Run the Jewels, Danny Brown, and Vince Staples.
Highsnobiety teamed up with Amazon Prime Video on a major giveaway to kick off the debut of Get Duked!, now streaming on Prime Video. Keep it locked here for more details.
