DREAM DECEIVERS: THE STORY BEHIND JAMES VANCE VS. JUDAS PRIEST   Director: David Van Taylor Year: 1992 Runtime: 60 min. Country: USA Language: English Color: Color Format: 16mm
On December 23, 1985, two young men in Reno, Nevada put shotguns to their own heads after drinking and smoking marijuana as they listened to a record by the British heavy metal group Judas Priest. Raymond Belknap shot himself fatally, while the other, James Vance, was grossly disfigured. Their parents, claiming that subliminal messages in the band's music mesmerized the boys into their bizarre suicide pact, filed suit against CBS Records. Centered around this non jurored trial, Dream Deceivers looks at this tragedy through interviews with Vance (who later died in 1988 from a medication overdose), his and Belknap's parents, other Reno "metalheads," and members of Judas Priest. "Dream Deceivers will rivet the attention, as it presents a terrible story of mixed signals and wasted lives." — Janet Maslin, The New York Times " Unflinching and disturbing... Dream Deceivers is its own sad anthem of alienation, a wake-up dirge in which too many families may alarmingly find themselves reflected." — USA Today "Dream Deceivers provides a nightmare glimpse into America's spiritual drought and the way people fill that void with diametrically opposed faiths... Dream Deceivers [is] ghoulish Americana that makes fictions such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and River's Edge seem like Mothercare ads." — Interview
THE SMELL OF BURNING ANTS   Director: Jay Rosenblatt Year: 1994 Runtime: 21 min. Country: USA Language: English Color: Color/B&W Format: 16mm
The Smell of Burning Ants is a haunting account of the pains and trauma of growing up male. In a layered and non-didactic way, it details the process of emotional death many boys suffer as they are socialized to become men. The inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure are evocatively presented. Rather than glorifying and romanticizing boyhood, this film opens up wounds to let the poison out. Grand Prize Winner, Hamburg International Film Festival "A profoundly disturbing and imaginative work." — Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times     showtime Tuesday, April 26 at 7 pm location THE GREEN ROOM 144 West Street (across from the Comstock Hotel) admission $6 general / $4 GBFS members

Home | About GBFS | Schedule | Memberships | Personnel | Contact | Forum | Links