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
Turner & Constable
Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
One of only a handful of live action children's films to capture the imaginations of generations, E.T. has a luminous warmth; it's a suburban symphony of emotion, and it's fascinating to revisit it in the light of The Fabelmans.
The President's Cake
Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.
Antonia's Line
This month's Pantheon selection spotlights the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Dutch feminist filmmaker Marleen Gorris, and her charming, vibrant tale of an emancipated farmer who refuses to conform.
