Coming to NYC’s IFC Center as part of the Queer/Art/Film series this coming Monday, February 24: SONG SUNG BLUE
Greg Kohs’ stranger than fiction story of a smalltime Milwaukee musical duo made its debut at Slamdance in 2008, where it took home both jury and audience awards. It also picked up awards at the IFF Boston, Indie Memphis, Philadelphia, and underground fests in Sydney and Chicago, while also screening at True/False, Sarasota, Hot Docs, Seattle, Silverdocs, Melbourne, Traverse City, Atlantic, Bergen, Austin, Denver, and Big Sky, among others.
Kohs’ offbeat, intense, and unexpectedly compelling film was one of my favorites of 2008, introducing audiences to performers Lightning & Thunder, the sequined alter egos of Mike and Claire Sardina, who cover Neil Diamond and Patsy Cline, respectively. But if their choice of careers alone weren’t grounds for a curious doc portrait, their knack for frankly bizarre tragedy lends a sense of the uncanny to Kohs’ fascinating chronicle of dreamers trying to make it to the big time. Struggling to make ends meet, and coping with the twists and turns of strange, almost unbelievable, accidents and their debilitating aftermath, Mike and Claire emerge as empathetic, fully-realized, and even tragic figures despite the trappings that initially might suggest casual dismissal by a cynical viewer.
Note: Musician/artist Cody Critcheloe of SSION, who selected the film for Ira Sachs and Adam Baran’s popular Q/A/F series, will participate in a discussion after the screening.
what (not) to doc 