A look at how a critically-acclaimed underground trailer park filmmaker makes his latest feature over the course of two days.
Likened to both John Cassavetes and John Waters, Giuseppe Andrews has quietly been making rough-hewn feature films on the cheap for fifteen years, often set in and starring residents of the trailer park communities in which he was raised, with titles like DAD’S CHICKEN, WHO FLUNG POO?, AIRPLANE PILLOWS, and DOILY’S SUMMER OF FREAK OCCURRENCES. Screening at underground festivals in New York and Chicago, as well as the late Cinevegas, former child actor turned outsider auteur Andrews has self-distributed his films online, or worked with Troma to release them on DVD, garnering attention from select critics and a cult following. Like Cassavetes, Andrews’ more recent work as an actor in films like CABIN FEVER or TV series like CSI has financed his low-budget filmmaking. Director Adam Rifkin, who cast Andrews in his film DETROIT ROCK CITY, works with producer Mike Plante, filmmaker and programmer at Sundance and Cinevegas, to reveal Andrews’ creative process.
With just under three weeks left in their Kickstarter campaign, Plante and Rifkin have made over 60% of their modest $3500 goal for post expenses at the time of this writing. For more info on Andrews’ work, visit his website.
While not familiar with Andrews’ films, I’m intrigued by the story of an artist who has chosen to deliberately and explicitly work on the fringe. The filmmakers’ intention to explore not only the particulars of his latest project, but also his overarching philosophy of anti-elitist creative production, suggests a promising update of the outsider artist profile which has generated such insightful past projects like MARWENCOL and AMERICAN MOVIE, among others.
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