Hold Me While I'm Naked
Pink Flamingos
Permission to be tawdry
A teenager in Baltimore saw the Kuchars' 16mm melodramas and decided he could make films too. He has said they mattered more to him than Warhol or Anger.
No-budget film
Features made with almost no money, often by one person, with friends, neighbours and whatever is at hand.
No-budget filmmakers turn their limits into a style: a cast of non-actors, real locations, fast shoots and home editing. George and Mike Kuchar made Hollywood-style melodramas on 8mm in the Bronx in the 1950s and 60s, and the tradition has never stopped.
Giuseppe Andrews left a Hollywood acting career to make features in a Ventura trailer park, casting his neighbours and paying them $75 or less a day. Garbanzo Gas was shot and edited in two days for $1,000.
Films to start with
In the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from Hold Me While I'm Naked to come. Hold Me While I'm Naked
George's film. He plays a lonely, frustrated director whose leading lady walks off over the nude scenes, and the film's centrepiece is a love scene in a shower. He rewrote it after his real lead actress left partway through the shoot, and paid for it with unemployment cheques.
Trailer Town
Out-of-work comedians live in a trailer park, and one climbs onto his roof with a rifle after an eviction notice. Most of the cast were Andrews's neighbours. It premiered at the New York Underground Film Festival.
Garbanzo Gas
A cow, played by Vietnam Ron, wins a weekend at a motel and meets two suicidal friends. It was shot and edited in two days for $1,000.
Still from Skinamarink to come. Skinamarink
Two children wake to find their father gone and the windows and doors of the house missing. The camera stays low in dark hallways and on ceilings and corners, the picture swims with grain, and the children's whispers come with subtitles.
Where it led
Lines from these films into work you may already know.
Nearby
Movements, forms and techniques that share filmmakers or methods with this one.