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
La Bola Negra
A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
The Mad Dog of Europe
The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.
The Mortal Storm
In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
Three Comrades
Scripted by F Scott Fitzgerald, Three Comrades (1938) was the first US studio film to chronicle the rise of European fascism in the 30s. Three German veterans open up a repair shop and try to regain a normal life, but political extremists have other ideas.