“First-time director Eddie O’Flaherty was able to work outside the system to make a film that I think can play in any theater or any multiplex. And yet it’s a boxing picture that is quite different from any formula boxing picture you’ve ever seen. In the final analysis, it’s not even really about boxing.” - Roger Ebert

“In Fighting Tommy Riley, the winner by a knockout is Eddie Jones. The veteran thespian, regularly seen in colorful supporting roles, flexes his considerable muscles as an aging trainer helping revive the career of a boxer who has lost faith in himself.” - Variety

“Fighting Tommy Riley is about the inability to escape who you really are, or who you long to be. It’s about overcoming the fear, shame and heartache felt from living a life unfulfilled.” - Eddie O’Flaherty

Lonely and in poor health, trainer Marty Goldberg (Eddie Jones) has been stuck working on the fringes of the professional circuit far too long. Searching for a way out, he discovers Tommy Riley (played by screenwriter J.P. Davis) , a young man with a troubled past, but raw talent to burn when the gloves are on. Outside the ring however, Tommy displays a self-destructive streak that could end his career before it begins. As the two men begin to work together, they find it’s not just Tommy’s volatile tendencies that threaten their relationship, but also the secret that Marty has spent a lifetime concealing.

Film festivals exist to bring you unheralded talent, and to showcase magnificent independent films that never played in a theater near you. Don’t miss O’Flaherty’s powerful, uplifting and often heart-breaking, debut film.