CRACK
1998, 45 seconds, 16mmSYNOPSIS
A scuzzy injection of “punk attitude” into the flabby, regimented process of corporate filmmaking, this 45-second short was funded by Levi Strauss. (No one was forced to wear Dockers on the set)
REVIEWS
“Fast, short, pointed and furious” – Filmmaker
“In less than a minute Moritsugu is able to successfully convey conflict, resolution… panic” – Film Threat Online
SCREENINGS
New York Underground Film Festival
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
Downtown Independent, LA
Microcinefest, Baltimore
Dockers-Levi Strauss Independent Film Festival, SF
CREDITS
Written and directed by: Jon Moritsugu
Starring: David Hahn
Music: Amy Davis and Jon Moritsugu
SLEAZY RIDER
1988, 23 minutes, 16mmSYNOPSIS
An excellent piss-take of the famous road film. This features two gal bikers, a kilo of pork sausage, spraypaint huffing, nice rough animation, and a semiotic grasp of pop-cult building blocks that seems archetypically Providential. Great stuff.
-Byron Coley, FORCED EXPOSURE
REVIEWS
“The film’s use of crude animation and genial low-grade yucks is well worth seeing. The soundtrack’s a doozy, too.” – SPIN
“The bikers are babes, the soundtrack is deafening.” – City Paper (DC)
“A shiny, dusted fairy tale of girl hoods on an epic scum ride.” – Your Flesh
SCREENINGS (selected) & AWARDS
Guggenheim, NYC
Honolulu Underground Film Festival, WINNER “POPULAR CHOICE” AWARD
Berlin Film Festival (market)
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
Downtown Independent, LA
New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
CREDITS
Starring: Hanna Davidson, Sam Grisdale, Wendy Edwards, Nancy Versaci
Written, directed & produced by: Jon Moritsugu
Music: Eugene Chadbourne, Shockabilly, feedtime, Steppenpuke
DER ELVIS
1987, 23 minutes, 16mmSYNOPSIS
A punked-out, radical deconstruction of the mythology of Elvis Presley colliding fact and fiction in a miasma of feedback, noise, and stoopid Presley impersonators. Der Elvis is literally and metaphorically a postmodern spew of theoretical aesthetics set to the pulsing soundtrack of utterly warped bricolage.
REVIEWS
“A 23-minute jolt of highly controlled chaos… it employs screeching feedback as an aural motif, handmade interventions on the film stock (scratching, drawing, writing), found footage and staged scenes… Mr. Moritsugu’s fast and fluid editing is a central strength of all his work.”
– The New York Times, 6-17-2015
One of the “top 50 movies of the 1980’s” – The Village Voice
“Best of the 80’s” – LA Weekly
“One of the most impressive and precocious student films ever made.”
–Anthology Film Archives, NYC
“Never has The King’s insouciant sex appeal seemed so creepy, so nose-in-the-trough piggish as it does in the 22-minute DER ELVIS.”
– The Village Voice, C. Carr, 11-3-1987
“Obscene, energetic, and grotesque… DER ELVIS is less a barbaric yawp than a 20-minute retch, building in ferocity until the final unctuous voice-over.”
– The Village Voice, J. Hoberman, 11-24-1987
SCREENINGS (selected)
Whitney Museum of American Art , NYC
National Museum of Warsaw, Poland
Venice Film Festival
Turin Film Festival
Rimini Film Festival
Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany
Millenium, NYC
Collective for Living Cinema, NYC
Anthology Film Archives, NYC
State Film Theater, Melbourne
Orion Theater, Helsinki
Cuando, NYC
Gas Station, NYC
ATA, San Francisco
San Francisco Art Institute
New York University Cinema Studies
University of Southern California
Columbia College Cinema Studies, Chicago
International Conference of the Avant-Garde, Toronto
Asian Pacific American Film Festival, Los Angeles
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
Downtown Independent, LA
CREDITS
Starring: Golden Joe Baker, Hanna Davidson, Sandra Hamburg, Neil Lazarus
Written, directed & produced by: Jon Moritsugu
BRAIN DEAD
1987, 1 minute, 16mmSYNOPSIS
A kinetic spazz-out of scratch animation, hand-painted frames, and B-roll textual madness, this was filmed in Hawaii and features the music of NYC’s Honeymoon Killers.
SCREENINGS
Brown University, Providence
Downtown Independent, LA
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Spectacle Theater, NY
Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
Millenium, NYC
CREDITS
Directed by: Jon Moritsugu
Music: Honeymoon Killers (NYC)
L’IL DEBBIE SNACKWHORE OF NYC
1987, 2 minutes, 16mmSYNOPSIS
A silent, edited-in-camera exposition of kitsch culture, mass consumption, and the rejection of the capitalist hegemony.
SCREENINGS
Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
Downtown Independent, LA
Côté Court Film Festival, France
Asian American International Film Festival, SF
PS 1, Long Island City
PS 122, NYC
Millenium NYC
CREDITS
Directed by: Jon Moritsugu
Director of photography: Lisa Guay
MOMMY MOMMY WHERE’S MY BRAIN
1986, 10 minutes, 16mmSYNOPSIS
Shot with a budget of approximately $500, it renounces any quest for naturalism or authenticity in favor of the twitchy, raw, attitude of punk. Mommy Mommy Where’s My Brain stands as a testament to Moritsugu’s directorial vision, an inaugural gesture by a radical underground film-maker.”- -Jack Sargeant, DOWNTOWN FILM & TV CULTURE
SCREENINGS
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
Downtown Independent, LA
Côté Court Film Festival, France
Asian American International Film Festival, SF
PS 1, Long Island City
PS 122, NYC
Millenium NYC
CREDITS
Starring: Robert Erskine, Afshin Gharib, Fernanda Moore, Lawrence James
Written, directed and produced by: Jon Moritsugu