Get Involved, Internet: Help fund a twisted (and hilarious) new documentary from the Found Footage Festival
The Found Footage Festival’s Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett are among the world’s foremost experts in bizarre (and funny) VHS trash that was never meant for public consumption. This distinction has made them a magnet for fans with weird tapes of their own, but all the home movies and Christian public access shows on the planet couldn’t have prepared him for the tape brought to them by filmmaker Oscar Harding. After a show in Milwaukee, Harding introduced them to the work of Charles Carson, an English farmer and amateur filmmaker who shot, scored, and edited his bizarre movies—described as “Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”—all by himself.
Prueher and Pickett, taken by Carson’s footage of skeleton drag shows and slimy births, signed on as executive producers of a documentary Harding is making about the man. “Filmmaking wasn’t Charles’ only talent—there’s a real argument to be made that he was an early pioneer of the Death Positivity Movement,” reads a synopsis of Life On The Farm, which promises a “journey that’s been full of twists and turns.”
“I will say it’s the only major documentary announced this year featuring a cow placenta,” Prueher said in an email to The A.V. Club. “We have found 11,000 videos since we started collecting in 1991 and this is the strangest one we’ve ever come across.”
Today, Harding, Prueher, and Pickett launched a Kickstarter to help the film cross the finish line. “We have a hell of a story to tell, but we need to finish principal photography, complete post-production to the highest possible standard, and launch a marketing and festival campaign that ensures we can reach as many people as possible,” reads the campaign’s description. In addition to DVD and VHS copies of the finished documentary, donors can also score a private online screening with live commentary from Prueher and Pickett.
Still need convincing? Watch the trailer below (not while eating, we’d recommend).
Learn more about the project and make a donation over at the project’s Kickstarter page.
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