In the finest tradition of MAD Magazine, this film uses found footage to shine a most unflattering light on American political culture. Gonzo director duo Soda Jerk employs film, television, and internet clips to tell the story of the US from 2016 to 2021; cleverly combining the material, they create a fictional neighborhood torn apart by political division, wild rhetoric, and loony conspiracies.
From Police Academy to The ‘Burbs, Wayne’s World to Stranger Things, pop culture classics are fused into wacky, wide-ranging satire. The picture Soda Jerk paints is, of course, dismaying, but the political grotesquerie is leavened with a strong dose of stoner humor. The directors have a sharp sense of the bizarre, and their dark-toned facetiousness is perfect for the years portrayed: from Trump vs. Hillary through the pandemic and on to the triumph of “corporate liberalism,” absurdity is the watchword, and what better approach to recent American history could there be?
September 30 & October 2: Q&A with directors Soda Jerk
Media Partner
Community Partner
Australia
2022
Spectrum
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Soda Jerk
Editor
Soda Jerk
Director
Soda Jerk
Soda Jerk is a filmmaking duo with an interest in articulating film samples into a rogue documentary impulse. Forming in Sydney in 2002, the duo has been New York-based since 2012. They have collaborated on projects with cyberfeminist collective VNS Matrix and electronic music group The Avalanches. Their latest feature, Hello Dankness (2023) was nominated for the Panorama Audience Award at Berlin International. The Guardian named the “dizzyingly ambitious satirical work” one of the best Australian movies of the decade.
Filmography: Hollywood Burn (2006); Terror Nullius (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
King Arthur's Night
John Bolton's film of Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef's musical staging recreates Camelot at Harrison Hot Springs. It's a self-referential piece which joyfully reframes a classical narrative through the prisms of disability, inclusivity, and imagination.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Democracy Under Siege
As the USA turns 250, Oscar-nominated director Laura Nix considers the roots of the current political crisis with commentary from historian Heather Cox Richardson, progressive politician Jamie Raskin, and cartoonist Ann Telnaes, among others.