FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ASU WEST AND NO FESTIVAL REQUIRED PRESENT

George Kuchar Film Symposium
“America’s Original Underground Filmmaker”
Saturday February 6, 2010

5:00pm Screening “It Came From Kuchar”, documentary on George and Mike 
Kuchar by Jennifer Kroot

6:30pm Screening of recent Short Films by filmmaker George Kuchar

Kiva Lecture Room, Sands Building, Arizona State University West
4701 West Thunderbird Road
Glendale, AZ 85306-4900
Parking map (Best Parking is in Lot 13) http://www.west.asu.edu
Campus number (602) 543-5500
Press contact No Festival Required Independent Cinema (602 )265-9524
FREE TO THE PUBLIC - LIMITED SEATING -ADULT CONTENT
(note to press-photos in gallery section http://www.kucharfilm.com )

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Club, and HArCS

A special event from ASU West and the Interdisciplinary Arts & 
Performance Club brings filmmaker George Kuchar from San Francisco to 
screen both his recent works and a documentary on The Kuchar Brothers!
+++++++++++++++
Long before YouTube, there were the outrageous, no-budget movies of 
underground filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar. George and Mike 
grew up in the Bronx in the 1950’s. At the age of twelve, they became 
obsessed with Hollywood melodramas and began making their own homespun 
melodramas with their aunt’s 8mm camera. They used their friends and 
family as actors and their Bronx neighborhood as their set. Early Kuchar 
titles featured in this film include “I Was A Teenage Rumpot” and “Born 
of the Wind”.

In the early 1960’s, alongside Andy Warhol, the Kuchar brothers shaped 
the New York underground film scene. Known as the “8mm Mozarts”, their 
films were noticeably different than other underground films of the 
time. They were wildly funny, but also human and vulnerable.

Their films have inspired many filmmakers, including John Waters, Buck 
Henry, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and Wayne Wang (all are interviewed in 
this film). Despite having high profile fans, the Kuchars remain largely 
unknown because they are only ambitious to make movies, not to be famous.

“It Came From Kuchar” interweaves the brothers’ lives, their admirers, a 
history of underground film and a “greatest hits” of Kuchar clips into a 
mesmerizing stream of consciousness tale.

Affectionately directed by one of George’s former students, Jennifer M. 
Kroot, “It Came From Kuchar” will introduce you to the amazing Kuchar 
brothers – two brothers who love to make movies and continue to inspire 
others.

"It Came From Kuchar" gleefully piles on everything anyone could want in 
a docu on the fabulous Kuchar brothers, whose deliriously campy 
zero-budget mellers -- with titles like "Hold Me While I'm Naked" or 
"Sins of the Fleshapoids" -- enlivened many otherwise somber evenings of 
'60s underground cinema.” Variety

Film info http://www.kucharfilm.com
+++++++++
George Kuchar (born August 31, 1942, New York City) is an American film 
director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic, playful use of no-talent 
actors, plotless plots, and themeless themes. Trained as a commercial 
artist in a vocational high school, the School of Industrial Art, he 
drew weather maps for a local news show. During this period, he and his 
twin brother Mike Kuchar were making 8mm movies which were showcased in 
the then-burgeoning underground film scene alongside films by Andy 
Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Stan Brakhage.

After being laid off from a commercial art job in New York City, Kuchar 
was offered a teaching job in the film department of the San Francisco 
Art Institute, where he has taught since 1971. It was in San Francisco 
that he became involved with underground comics via his neighbors Art 
Spiegelman and Bill Griffith. They both wound up in his movies and 
George wound up in their publications.

Filmography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0473647/

-- 
Steve Weiss
602-265-9524
Executive Director, No Festival Required-for submissions  and screening info go to
http://www.nofestivalrequired.wordpress.com
http://www.myspace.com/no_festival_required
TWITTER-weissguy

Since 2002, No Festival Required has championed quality independent film programming from local, national and international filmmakers in Phoenix, the Valley of the Sun and worldwide.