USA Projects

ABOUT THE FILM

In 2005, a young American was found unconscious in the Berlin subway tracks with major contusions to the head from the fall and a lethal blood alcohol level of 0.47. That was me. Strangers pulled me from the tracks, giving me a second chance at life, and propelling me on a journey of body, mind, and spirit that has become The Skin I'm In. 

The film is both intimate and expansive, traveling from Berlin to British Columbia, New Jersey to Japan, Kenya to Los Angeles, documenting my collaboration with Canadian First-Nations artist Rande Cook, and African-American tattoo artist Zulu to produce my full back tattoo. The documentary uses this physical transformation as the departure point and thread for my story of bodily abuse, experimentation, and redemption.

The Skin I'm In offers up a powerful example of how the personal can speak to an evolving global social awareness, crossing boundaries to create a more integrated understanding of human experience. In a social-media culture where the once political act of self-expression has become a digital commonplace, the project asks there still space for the “I” and for “identity” to matter and to register as access points to larger sociopolitical understanding and social change.

CAMPAIGN GOALS

I was able to shoot and edit a fine cut of  the project  for under  $6000, but am now working around the clock to raise the remaining  funds to send this film over the finish line.

Your donation will go directly to the small cadre of dedicated professionals I have lined up to polish the final cut and get it ready to take to film festivals around the world.  This includes  image color correction, titling, our music  recording, music mix, final sound mix, and master tape layback. 

Anything raised above and beyond the minimum needed for our basic completion will go towards festival application fees, the design and duplication of publicity and marketing materials, Website maintenance, and travel costs as I tour the project to promote education and outreach. 

DIRECTOR'S  STATEMENT

Coming out as a teenager in the early 1990’s was a strange and frightening time. It was the height of the AIDS crisis and was suffused with news of Jeffrey Dahmer coercing boys my own age home from the mall and dismembering them. My survival mechanism was to come out on principle but to physically shut down my sexuality. Angered by the hypocrisy of organized religion, I also eschewed any pursuit of spirituality. This led to years of living purely through my intellect and achieving great success on paper, all the while exacting a litany of self-abuse until my body finally reached its breaking point in the Berlin subway on July 23, 2005.

Independent from large crews, controlling producers, and market pressures, my autobiographical works afford me an artisanal approach rarely possible in the media arts.  My work at once embraces and subverts documentary conventions, utilizing three-dimensional characters, emotional storytelling, and a range of unexpected aesthetic modes to permit audiences to access and identify deeply with challenging perspectives and subject matters traditionally excised from mainstream media.

It is my hope that this film will impact others who have their own internal battles—be they around issues of sexuality, past trauma, creative frustration, addiction, or cultural ostracism—revealing that there is life, purpose, art, even momentary states of grace, beyond these cultural and private wars.

Visit the film’s Website: http://www.SkinImInMovie.com to learn more about the film’s featured artists Rande Cook and Zulu, and to meet the creative team: composer Ronit Kirchman, sound designer Scott Johnson, associate producer Lee Biolos, and additional cinematographers Sarah Levy and Andrew Groves.

Screen other works by Broderick Fox at http://vimeo.com/broderickfox