Curators Will Tape New DVD at Music Box Theatre
The Found Footage Festival, the acclaimed touring showcase of odd and hilarious found videos, will make its triumphant return to Chicago in June with a brand-new show. Hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, whose credits include The Onion and the Late Show with David Letterman, are excited to show off their 2012 lineup of found video clips and live comedy on Saturday, June 16th at 8:30 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave.). The special, one-night-only appearance will be taped for the Found Footage Festival’s Volume 6 DVD. Tickets are $12 and are available HERE.
The Found Footage Festival is a one-of-a-kind event showcasing videos found at garage sales and thrift stores and in warehouses and dumpsters throughout North America. Curators Pickett and Prueher host each screening in-person and provide their unique observations and commentary on these found video obscurities. From the curiously-produced industrial training video to the forsaken home movie donated to Goodwill, the Found Footage Festival resurrects these forgotten treasures and serves them up in a lively celebration of all things found.
Among the new clips featured in the 2012 program:
- A video featuring a woman whose enthusiasm for craft sponging borders on psychotic
- A new collection of exercise tapes, including one called “The Sexy Treadmill Workout”
- Never-before-seen clips from the Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser yo-yo pranks that the FFF hosts pulled on local news stations last year
- An “opening act” of found classroom films from the ‘60s and ‘70s, curated especially for the show by renowned collector Skip Elsheimer of A.V. Geeks
- Highlights from a 1986 video about how to care for your ferret
The Found Footage Festival was founded in New York in 2004 and has gone on to sell out hundreds of shows across the U.S. and Canada, including the HBO Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. The festival has been featured on National Public Radio, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and G4 TV’s Attack of the Show, and has been named a critic’s pick in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and The Chicago Tribune. The FFF can also be seen twice a week in a popular web series on The Onion’s A.V. Club, in the hit documentary “Winnebago Man,” and in their new book, “VHS: Absurd, Odd and Ridiculous Relics from the Videotape Era.”
For more info, check out the festival’s official website HERE.
ABOUT THE CURATORS:
Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher began collecting found videotapes in 1991 after stumbling across a training video entitled, “Inside and Outside Custodial Duties,” at a McDonald’s in their home state of Wisconsin. Since then, they have compiled an impressive collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos. Pickett, a writer/director, and Prueher, a former researcher at the Late Show with David Letterman, have written for The Onion and Entertainment Weekly and directed the award-winning documentary, “Dirty Country” (www.dirtycountrymovie.com), now available on DVD. They are also the masterminds behind the Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser yo-yo pranks that hit local morning TV news shows across the Midwest and have since racked up millions of hits on YouTube.
About the Music Box Theatre:
For nearly 30 years the Music Box Theatre has been the premiere venue in Chicago for independent and foreign films, festivals and some of the greatest cinematic events in Chicago. It currently has the largest theater space operated full time in the city. The Music Box Theatre is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation. SMBC, through its Music Box Films division, also distributes foreign and independent films in the theatrical, DVD and television markets throughout the United States. www.musicboxtheatre.com.
Download the entire Music Box Theatre Summer Calendar HERE.
