+ Q&A with director

Brett Ingram, USA 2004

For those who truly appreciate the magic of stop-motion animation and the tactile texture of clay, Monster Road is a journey of discovery. In this documentary, director Brett Ingram descends into the world of reclusive artist Bruce Bickford, the visionary genius behind Frank Zappa’s hallucinatory animations.

Far from civilization and hidden away in his childhood home, Bickford works with obsessive dedication on his clay figures and landscapes. In his DIY basement studio, he transforms them frame by frame into an endless stream of surreal imagery. The result is a fever-dream odyssey, constructed from thousands of minute elements that together form a fantasy world as magical as it is dark.

Yet Monster Road is more than a technical tour de force. It is an intriguing portrait of a man who retreats into his own creations, while in the background his father—once a brilliant engineer—slowly fades into the fog of dementia. The film offers a fascinating and at times unsettling look at the fine line between genius, isolation, and a strange, childlike way of thinking.-Wouter

We are happy to announce that this screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Brett Ingram.

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