White Wall Cinema: AMERICAN MOVIE
November 29 @ 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm
One of the funniest, most heartfelt and enjoyable documentaries of all time now celebrating it’s 25th anniversary ‘American Movie’ (winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival) centres on young Wisconsin filmmaker Mark Borchardt who along with friend Mike Schank are attempting to make low budget horror movie ‘Coven’. ‘Attempting’ being the operative word. Armed only with determination and a $3000 loan from his uncle, a combination of mishaps, mismanagement and sheer ineptitude lead to a catalogue of hilarious filmmaking disasters.
Here director Chris Smith, who went on to create a string of successful docs that include ‘Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond’ (the doc about Jim Carrey playing Andy Kauffman in Man On The Moon), ‘Fyre’ (about the failed Fyre Festival), ‘Sr’ (about Robert Downey Jr. and his father, Robert Downey Sr), the recent 2023 Wham! doc and an upcoming 2024 DEVO doc. crafts one of the most beloved, intimate and amusing docs of all time in ‘American Movie’.
This bittersweet doc about a would-be director and his bumbling but loyal friend is surprisingly funny, touching and a real love letter to the burning sense of ambition that fuels every true filmmaker as well as a loving and joyous portrait of two hapless friends chasing their dreams.
Also available is a discounted joint ticket for this screening and our September 24th screening of ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’. Charting the infamously over-budget out of control 1979 shoot of Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Encountering one monumental setback after another and fuelled by a burning desire to create something remarkable, Hearts of Darkness is American Movie writ large, and charts the very same filmmaking passion at the exact opposite end of the scale
- DOORS: 7.30pm*
- START TIME: 8pm*
- RUN TIME: 107 mins
- CERT: 15
