Renegade San Francisco filmmaker Jon Moritsugu calls Fame Whore his breakthrough film, admitting he's abandoned certain underground conventions in favor of a more traditional - and comic -narrative structure.

Fame cuts between three interwoven stories examining our culture's lust for that elusive state when everybody knows your name. The triptych includes an all-American tennis star hounded by rumors that he's gay, a trust-fund brat on a demonic quest for celebrity and an idealized innocent so isolated he's created a six-foot Saint Bernard as an imaginary friend. "To me, the 1990s are all about fame - cruising to claim it, desperate to hold on to it, trying to resuscitate it," says Moritsugu. "The tennis subculture is at least as weird as the punk underground, and the movie's an indictment of our obsession with celebrity and fame.

Moritsugu was the bad boy of the Brown semiotics program - whose '80s grads include some dozen major indie influences like Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon. He'd made five shorts before the 70-minute My Degeneration got him anointed as a talent to be reckoned with at Sundance '90. Around then Moritsugu got a $100,000 settlement from a 1988 industrial accident in which he almost lost an arm; Fame is the third no-budget feature he's financed since.

To get Fame made Moritsugu reunited with Mod Fuck Explosion producer Andrea Sperling (Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day, Doom Generation). They shot the 16mm color film over 15 days in San Francisco last November, including a week in a $1,200-a-day suite at a five-star hotel they got for free.

At press time Moritsugu was editing Fame in his living room on a six-plate KEM. Benny Goodman trumpet player Mel Davis, Moritsugu's father-in-law, is composing a jazz score for Fame's tennis section and Moritsugu's planning underground punk rock and public domain music and effects for the film's other sections. He says Fame will be finished by July; all rights are available.

Cast: Peter Friedrich, Victor of Acquitaine, Amy Davis, Jason Rail, Michael Fitzpatrick, Izabela Wojcik. Crew: Producers, Andrea Sperling, Jon Moritsugu; Screenwriter/Director/Editor, Morit-sugu; Director of Photography, Sarah Leech; Production Designer, Jennifer Gentile; Sound, Adrian, Roko Belic. Contact: Andrea Sperling, Blurco, 1933 Grace Avenue, #14, Los Angeles, CA 90068. Tel/Fax: (213) 850-7538.

The Broken Giant - Estep Nagy
The Delta - Ira Sachs
Fame Whore - Jon Moritsuga
Girlfriends - Marlies Carruth
Lewis & Clark & George - Rod Mccall
Loose Women - Paul Bernard
Occasional Hell - Salome Breziner
Rudy Blue - John Werner
Sam - Richie Vetter
Shooting Lilly - Arthur Borman