GUT INSTINCT: coming to Aotearoa!

Or, how I accidentally became a film distributor.

Before you curl up for twenty-five paragraphs of story time (sorry), here’s the news: GUT INSTINCT is playing all summer in Aotearoa, hopefully at a cinema near you, and if not, bug them to get in touch with me. It will be playing in limited engagements in many places - which will probably to translate to a couple times a month - and I’ll also be doing a touring roadshow, Phase I of which starts on Saturday in Thames at the Left Bank Theatre and Sunday in Auckland at the Hollywood Avondale. The whole schedule (which also visits Wellington, Christchurch, other Auckland dates, and hopefully one other city very soon) is on the film’s website, which is worth checking out even if you’ve seen the film, because if you were wondering about that whole “43% true” thing, there are the answers. And if you’re not sold on the film, there’s a trailer, advance praise, and more. And if you want something else there, tell me and I’ll get it there.

This is not what I planned to have happen with GUT INSTINCT. So, story time.

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I’ve spent seven years making this post-apocalyptic found footage instructional film on acid that’s 43% true. If you’ve managed to avoid hearing me pitch it, it’s about alien microbes that land on Earth, colonize our guts, discover a lust for dopamine and puppeteer us into the downfall of civilisation - and how you can free your mind, and guts, forever with the GUT INSTINCT purification programme!

I’ve been telling the story lots of places - you can read or listen to some of the Q&As on the website if you want to know more - but I didn’t make it to connect to a large audience. I didn’t even know if it would be a feature. I just made something that I’d want to watch, and that was fun to make.

As it started coming together, I received enough feedback along the way that it was working as a feature. I got a 5.1 sound mix to make it really sing in a cinema, and started my plans to get it screened.

The plan, which I executed, was this: I would apply to a number of festivals (it wound up being 25) between September and November 2024, mostly in America. Some were what they call “aspirational” (Fantastic Fest, Chicago), some were in places I felt connected to (Portland, Naples, Windsor), some were recommended to me, some seemed like they had the right offbeat energy, one was a festival my first feature Jake played at, and one was a fest where I e-know the programmer. I knew I wouldn’t get into all of them, but I thought I could get into a few and build some interest for the film.

I got into zero.

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Whilst wallowing, I decided that if I was going to be at home for my birthday (24 September, the date of Fantastic Fest), I might as well share this weird film I’ve been working on for the last seven years with friends. So I rented out a cinema for a night and played it, and something weird happened.

Everyone liked it.

That’s not just lobby vibes. I got anonymous surveys to rate it from 1 to 5. I got a heap of 4s, some 3s, and a few 5s. No 2s or 1s, not even from spouses who’d been dragged to some weird film by a guy they barely knew.

Still, I needed a less friendly audience to see if it would work. And that was around the corner.

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The story of how I was selected at the 11th hour for the Terror-Fi Film Festival is long and dull. Suffice to say, I found out I was playing 11 October, and premiered there 1 November. And now, strangers could say whatever the hell they wanted online.

And they only said nice things. At least on Letterboxd. Even the one 2 1/2 star review - thus far the lowest - said nice things. Most of the other ones said crazy, raving shit.

And these weren’t just weirdos who appreciated that I was riffing on obscure crap most people don’t watch, like Tribulation 99 and Stan Brakhage. At the Welly Q&A, I got three separate questions from people in various science fields who were drawn in by the factual content.

But the compliment that got me was at the end of that screening, when someone came up and told me “my cheeks hurt from smiling”.

GUT INSTINCT was always my idea of fun. But my idea of fun often sends people into apoplectic rages. But people keep saying that word, and meaning it.

And there’s another word I keep hearing: cinematic.

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The conventional thing at some point along the way would have been to go to a distributor. But this has all happened really quickly, and there’s no precedent for this kind of film to point to, and it seemed like a waste to not build on the momentum from Terror-Fi, especially given a particularly dire end of the year filled with reboots, remakes, repurposings of IP, and very little original or unique content - much less cinema.

(Also, my day job - freelance editing commercial television - is having a catastrophic turn that makes the GFC look like a lolly scramble. Silver lining: I have the time!)

One of the joys of making a film for very little money is there’s nothing to lose, other than potential money, and I never thought this had any potential along those lines until I started showing it in cinemas and experiencing it with an audience.

But people are responding to it being bold, fun, unique, commanding the screen, and owning the surround system. The addition of participatory elements - an element increasing and shifting with every screening to date - adds something else, and also means it’s getting compared to Megalopolis a lot, which is a trip, as a) I have infinite respect and love for Coppola even when his films don’t connect for me, and b) I’m sure FFC owns bottles of wine that are more expensive than my film.

So, I have an official release date of the 5th of December, but I’m starting advance screenings this weekend, with that roadshow I mentioned at the top. I’m building the plane as I go, hearing from new exhibitors every day as I try to work out what’s best for different cinemas with different audiences. And I’m keeping the film cinema-only all summer, in the hopes of doing roadshow screenings over the summer as demand and willing venues permit.

As for the rest of the world? We’ll see. I have outstanding applications to some other festivals, who may now look on Letterboxd and find, instead of an expectant gaping void, a passel of positive reviews. Or who may continue to reject me.

But regardless of what happens there, I’ve already succeeded. I finally finished my second feature. I’m happy with it, I’ve shared it with audiences, and they enjoy it.

All the rest is gravy.