“In a way, I see the festival as run like a punk rock label — a successful one!” says filmmaker and Slamdance “co-conspirator” Paul Rachman. With its award ceremony and final screenings, the Slamdance Film Festival concluded its 25th year last night (read the full list of winners here) — an astonishing fact of longevity that none of its founders could have predicted when they launched the outsider event in Park City back in 1995. “We were a wild bunch of filmmakers who got together to do something different,” says co-founder Peter Baxter. “And we’re realizing now how naive we […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2019American Hardcore directors Paul Rachman and Steven Blush are back with Lost Rockers, a documentary on great rock ‘n roll performers who have been buried beneath the sands of time. They include Chris Robison, Gloria Jones, David Peel, Bobby Jameson, Evie Sands, Cherry Vanilla, and Gass Wild and Johnny Hodge of the Lightning Raiders. Rachman and Blush have just released this new teaser, and you can read more about the film at its website.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2013Director Paul Rachman retraces the history of punk rock. Paul Rachman’s American Hardcore is a salute to the U.S. underground punk scene that exploded in 1980. Inspired by Steven Blush’s 2001 book American Hardcore: A Tribal History (Feral House), Rachman’s blunt documentary was culled from over 120 hours of interview footage, as well as a stack of archival concert videos compiled from closets, shoeboxes and fan memorabilia stashes. The film also documents a phenomenon that Rachman and Blush observed firsthand, before the scene fizzled in the mid-’80s. “The scene burned out before anybody came to capitalize on it, so it’s […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 22, 2006