Regardless of how you might feel about Kevin Smith’s filmography as a whole, you have to admit that what he pulled off as just just some backwards-hat-and-trench-coat-wearing guy from New Jersey is astounding. Willing a feature-length movie into existence with practically nothing in the middle of nowhere and somehow parlaying that into a 22-year (and counting) multi-media career with a large and extremely loyal fan base is hard to do. So, it makes sense that Smith has been an inspiration to many younger filmmakers. But none quite so literally as Christopher Downie.
The 31-year-old Scottish writer-director is finally getting ready to release Shooting Clerks, the film about the shooting of the film Clerks that he’s been working on for several years now. It tells the story of how a convenience store clerk pulled off the near-impossible and turned his quirky idea into a movie we’re still talking about today. The new trailer gives the impression that Downie—by choice, necessity, or some combination—stayed very close to the spirit of the super low-budget film whose origins it chronicles.
Shooting Clerks will premiere at the Orlando Film Festival in Florida on October 22, followed by showings in New York City and New Jersey on November 10 and 11.