Highways Performance Space Presents “Film Maudit 2.0” (Nov 12-17) @ Green Galactic PR

For Immediate Release:

Highways Performance Space & Gallery Presents

Film Maudit 2.0

Its Inaugural Film Festival

Four Days Dedicated To Outré Films

At Highways in Santa Monica, CA

Thursday, November 14 Through Sunday, November 17, 2019

LOS ANGELES, CA – October 18, 2019 – Highways Performance Space & Gallery is pleased to present Film Maudit 2.0 from Thursday, November 14, through Sunday, November 17, 2019, its inaugural film festival celebrating the work of outré filmmakers. Conceived and curated by Highways’ Artistic Director, Patrick Kennelly, the festival program will include six feature films and 40 shorts from around the globe with work from Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Estonia, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK. 50% of selected films are by female-identifying filmmakers. Each feature and short film in the program will make its Los Angeles premiere. Awards will be given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Experimental Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Experimental Short and Best Animated Short. Festival passes cost $40 for the entire four-day program. Tickets for individual screenings will cost $10 each, and go on sale next week. Highways is located at the 18^th Street Arts Complex, 1651 18^th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404 (310-453-1755). Seating is limited and advance reservations for screenings are highly recommended. To learn more, please visit http://www.filmmaudit.org and for tickets, visithttps://highwaysperformance.org/event/film-maudit-2-0.

Film Maudit 2.0 is a film festival dedicated to outré films, inspired by the legendary artist Jean Cocteau’s 1949 Festival Du Film Maudit, which celebrated a group of films that were criminally overlooked and neglected at the time. The term “film maudit” literally means “cursed films,” and this showcase of genre-driven cinema will blend narrative, documentary and experimental films that in style or subject matter are deliberately bold, extreme, confrontational or unusual. Film Maudit 2.0will celebrate adventuresome cinema including work that deals with socio-political issues and taboo subject matter that challenges artistic assumptions and sexual mores.

“Each of these films are an L.A. premiere – which really goes to show the need here in Los Angeles for something like this – that doesn’t cater to any one community or genre; that is fiercely grass roots, declares, Festival Founder, Patrick Kennelly. “Film Maudit encompasses not just live-action narrative films, but also documentary and experimental works. There is a connecting spirit to all of these works, with each selected to engage a different facet of the cinematic imagination. These radical ‘cinemasations’ are guaranteed to not just entertain, but challenge the mind and shock the senses.”

Festival Highlights Include:

F E A T U R E S_P R O G R A M:

Mope (USA) –

The Los Angeles premiere of Lucas Heyne’s directing debut, Mope, a feature-length drama co-written by Zack Newkirk and Heyne and produced by Parkside Pictures in association with Saxton Cinema and Uncooperative Pictures. Set in the San Fernando Valley, the drama is based on the tragic true story of best friends Steve Driver and Tom Dong, two low end porn actors who sought fame but gained infamy. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and stars Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Steve Driver and Kelly Sry as Tom Dong and includes David Arquette as Rocket.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6927492

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER (USA) –

The Los Angeles premiere of Ryland Tews’ feature debut, Lake Michigan Monster – Winner of the Audience Award – Best International Film Award at the 2019 Fantasia Film Festival, is a whip smart comedy that follows an eccentric ship captain and a crew of specialists as they plot revenge against the most mysterious creature of the deep – the Lake Michigan Monster.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6748030

DOLLHOUSE (USA) –

Other features include DOLLHOUSE: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity from American Popular Culture, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature and the George Stark Award at Slamdance 2019. A disturbingly entertaining film that charts the rise and fall of fictional child pop star Junie Spoons as her life story (and the ensuing disasters) unfold – as told by those who knew her. Revealing the hypocrisies of a society that preys on the talents and contributions of women, DOLLHOUSE is a scathing look at what it means to be female in a modern world.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7587232

JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY (Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Ethiopia, Romania, UK) –

Written and directed by Miguel Llansó, Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, an unexpectedly goofy sci-fi-adventure-comedy in the spirit of Team America: World Police, is a Spanish, Ethiopian and Estonian co-production that looks like nothing else out there, blending an afro-futurist outlook with the retro cool of the Cold War spy thriller.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8550514

FLESH CITY (Germany) –

Flesh City, written and directed by Thorsten Fleisch, is an experimental horror film out of Germany. The film follows a young couple who stumbles into a dark, incomprehensible world in the basement of a nihilistic techno club, opening a portal to mutation and mayhem.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4260456

HAPPY FACE (Canada) –

Desperate to become less shallow, Stan, a handsome 19-year-old, deforms his face with bandages and attends a support group for disfigured people after he learns his cancer-ridden mother will undergo invasive facial surgery. But when he’s exposed as an impostor, Stan strikes a deal with Vanessa, the domineering workshop leader: he stays with the group, and in exchange he trains them on how to use their facial differences as a weapon against our beauty-obsessed culture.

Happy Face is filmed with real persons with facial differences playing fictionalized versions of themselves.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6470028

Photo credit: Happy Face, Alexandre Franchi – Photo courtesy of Big Time PR

S H O R T S_P R O G R A M:

The festival’s program of shorts spreads over five categories, from animation to avant horror, to experimental works to the completely bizarre.

ANIMATION_

In the animation category, styles range from non-traditional live action to magical realism and animation for mature audiences. The animated shorts encompass a diverse array of storylines and techniques from a prehistoric fantasy adventure (Savage Death Valley), to a sardonic take on social obsession with beauty (Caterpillarplasty) to work about stereotypes in rock culture (Hunks), and a mixed-media stop-motion piece about a motorcyclist riding between worlds (The Motorcyclist).

HORROR_

Among characters in the avant (left-of-center) horror category are a man who fantasizes about being devoured by an anima (Muil), a female professor trying to escape the vicious circle of the horror genre (The Film Machine), and a man who makes a deal with the devil in order to learn the truth about dead bodies he finds in a motel (IRA).

EXPERIMENTAL_

Shorts in the experimental category include the first-person video diary of a young jaguar who escapes from the zoo and is recaptured (Valerio’s Day Out), the search for masculine connectivity featuring a transsexual transplant in the American South (The Eddies), an endless train ride in the heat of Vietnam (Hanoied) and a film that combines three moments of shared looking at Chicago’s Marina City (Do It Again).

BIZARRE_

Bizarre short format works include the dark story of a bullied teenage girl’s revenge (It’s Not Custard), three stoner buddies who confront the supernatural on a visit to a mountain getaway (Montana, GA) and blood n’ guts, the deep blue sea, tooth decay, and her lazy (but weirdly menacing?) boyfriend add up to a really rough night of sleep for Alex (Wakey Wakey).

Film Still – Caterpillarplasty, directed David Barlow-Krleina

S P E C I A L_E V E N T S:

Saturday, November 16 @ Midnight –

“Cinematic Music Event”

Joel Jerome and Jimi Cabeza de Vaca will be performing live scores to Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished masterpiece Que Viva Mexico as well as the 1910 Thomas Edison produced Frankenstein.

Sunday, November 17 @ 7:30 pm

“Sushi Girl Screening with Cast & Crew“

There will be a special screening of the highly stylized 2012 crime thriller, Sushi Girl, with performances by a rogue gallery of famous character actors including Mark Hamill (Star Wars),Tony Todd (Candyman), Michael Beihn (Terminator), Sonny Chiba (Kill Bill), James Duvall (Donnie Darko), Jeff Fahey (Grindhouse) and Danny Trejo.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606339

Sushi Girl cast and crew will be in attendance for this special event sponsored by Magnet Releasing pending availability.

ABOUT:

PATRICK KENNELLY (Festival Founder & Artistic Director) –

Patrick Kennelly, Highways’ Artistic Director, received his BFA in Film/Video at CalArts and his MFA in Theater Direction at UCLA. He was the recipient of the 2008 Princess Grace Award for Theater and has received fellowships and grants from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of Santa Monica and the Center for Cultural Innovation. He has served as Highways’ Artistic Director since 2017.

HIGHWAYS PERFORMANCE SPACE & GALLERY –

For 30 years, Highways Performance Space & Gallery has been one of Southern California’s most important non-profit alternative cultural centers, encouraging radical artists from diverse communities to develop and present innovative new work in various media. Described by the Los Angeles Times as “a hub of experimental theater, dance, solo drama and other multimedia performance,” Highways promotes the development of contemporary socially involved artists and art forms. Under the helm of Executive Director, Leo Garcia, Highways has received special funding and support from organizations such as the California Arts Council; the National Endowment for the Arts, the Warhol Foundation and the Getty Grant Program, to name a few. Garcia is an award-winning playwright, filmmaker, visual artist and actor who has produced over 700 performance works as Artistic Director-turned-Executive Director of Highways since 2003.

LINKS:

• Film Maudit 2.0 Official Site – http://www.filmmaudit.org

• Film Maudit 2.0 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/filmmaudit2.0/?ref=py_c

• Film Maudit 2.0 Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/filmmaudit2.0

• Film Maudit 2.0 Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/filmmaudit2

@FilmMaudit2.0 @FilmMaudit2

• Highways Performance Space & Gallery – https://highwaysperformance.org

• Highways Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/highwaysperformanhce

• Highways Twitter – https://twitter.com/highwaysps

• Highways Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/highwaysps

• Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/user5997140

@HighwaysPS

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For more information, photos, to schedule an interview or request press passes, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

~ FESTIVAL DETAILS ~

WHO & WHAT:

Film Maudit 2.0 is Highways’ inaugural film festival dedicated to outré films, inspired by the legendary artist Jean Cocteau’s 1949 Festival Du Film Maudit, which celebrated a group of films that were criminally overlooked and neglected at the time.

WHEN:

Thursday, November 14 – Sunday, November 17

• festival program schedule posted around Oct. 24th

WHERE:

Highways Performance Space & Gallery

@ 18th Street Arts Complex

1651 18th Street

Santa Monica, CA 90404

310-453-1755

TICKETS:

http://www.filmmaudit.org

Festival Pass $40