Filmmaker: Christopher Metzler
Film: Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea
November 7-15, 2007
About the filmmaker:
After graduating from USC with a degree in business and cinema, Chris Metzler's film career has taken him (on the left in the picture to the right) from the depths of agency work, to coordinating post-production for awful American movies seen late at night in Belgium.
His film directing and producing work has resulted in frequent partnerships with co-director Jeff Springer (on the right), where together they've criss-crossed the country with the aid of caffeinated beverages and made their way in the Nashville country and Christian music video industries, before finally forsaking their souls to commercial LA rock n' roll. These misadventures eventually culminated in the duo winning a Billboard Magazine Music Video Award.
Chris now finds himself pursuing docs featuring gay truck drivers and Australian opal miners.
About the film:
In the middle of a harsh desert valley in California's southeast corner, lies a glimmering blue jewel - the Salton Sea. Along its desolate shores stand boarded-up motels, dusty rural towns, half-flooded vacation homes, and miles of sun-crisped fish carcasses. Amid this surreal and apocalyptic landscape survives a most unusual and unexpected group of eccentrics, who have carved out their own slice of paradise on the shores of this ecological disaster. Through their perceptions and misperceptions, the strange history and unexpected beauty of the Salton Sea is revealed.
Accidentally created by an engineering error in 1905, reworked in the 50's as a world class vacation destination for the rich and famous, and then suddenly abandoned after a series of hurricanes, floods, and fish die-offs, the Salton Sea has a bittersweet past. Now amongst the ruins of this man-made mistake, a few remaining people struggle to keep a remodeled version of the dream alive. However, this most unique community is now threatened by the nearby megalopolises of Los Angeles and San Diego, as they attempt to take the agricultural run-off that barely sustains the sea. The fate of this so-called ecological time bomb and the community that surrounds it remains uncertain, as the Salton Sea might just dry up.
While Plagues & Pleasures covers the economic, political, and environmental issues that face the sea, it more importantly offers up an offbeat portrait of the eccentric and individualistic people who populate its shores. It is an epic western tale of fantastic real estate ventures and failed boomtowns, inner-city gangs fleeing to white small town America, eternal optimism thriving among the remains of failed vacation destinations, and the subjective notion of success & failure amidst the landscape of the American Dream.
Narrated by John Waters.
Opening Short:
An Abstraction on the Chronology of Will
Directed by Ben Collins and Kevin Phillips (Fiction)
William Porten is nothing short of apathetic and despondent after a break-up with his girlfriend. He joins the military, becomes a Special Op, and lives with a sustained note of danger until being faced with a firing squad in the middle of the desert. Through an act of divine intervention his life is saved and his will to live is revitalized.
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