Wednesday, October 11 at 7:30 PM — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
BORDER RADIO
Directed by Allison Anders, Dean Lent, and Kurt Voss • 1987
The feature film debut of Allison Anders (an underappreciated director of ’90s feminist indies like Gas Food Lodging and Mi Vida Loca), Border Radio is a micro-budget crime film made and set during the waning days of the ’80s post-punk scene in Los Angeles. Anders and her co-directors Kurt Voss and Dean Lent were still in grad school at UCLA when they began what they thought would be an art school neo-noir and ended up becoming an ode to a crumbling music scene. Co-director Voss described the production’s DIY spirit as they struggled for four years to complete the film: “We perform the editing by walking the reels into the UCLA editing bays through a side door every night past 11 p.m. Allison’s kids kip down in sleeping bags under the editing table and we work until dawn.” Echoing the real-life production, Border Radio is a family affair, starring Anders’s sister Luanna as a rock-journalist and single mother searching for her missing husband (Chris D. of the Flesh Eaters) who’s hightailed it to Mexico after an ill-conceived robbery. Luanna grapples with lecherous drunks, childlike men, and unreliable babysitters on a search that has the hazy directionless vibes of Stranger Than Paradise with a dash of Candy Mountain. John Doe of legendary LA band X co-stars as Chris D.’s partner in crime. Doe, a melancholy rock star Adonis, would go on to have a prolific side career as a respected character actor. Featuring stunning Wenders-inspired black-and-white 16mm cinematography by Dean Lent. (RL)
87 min • Coyote Productions • 35mm from Chicago Film Society Collections, permission Janus Films
Preceded by: ’80s Indie trailer reel – ~10 min – 35mm
NEXT UP: I Was Born But… on Monday, October 16 at the Music Box
