Hoaxes, hipsters
and hilarity

The Kidnapper Films crew on hedonist
living, socialist filmmaking and their new
comedy Who Is KK Downey?

PREPOSTEROUS PUT-ONS: Matt Silver and Darren Curtis

by MARK SLUTSKY

First, some disclosure. I not only know the writers, directors, producers and stars of Who Is KK Downey?, most of whom have performed under the aegis of local comedy troupe Kidnapper Films for years now, but I’ve had, let’s say, various associations with them over the last decade or so. At different points, we’ve been friendly rivals. Collaborators. DJ partners. On some wobbly occasions, drunken confidants.

Let me just put all my cards on the table here: I even auditioned (at their request) for a part in KK Downey. I made a short film with co-writer/co-star Matt Silver. I gave them notes on an early cut of the film. Look, Montreal is a small town, okay?

But I’m asking you to overlook any and all of my potential conflicts of interest when I say that these spunky kids have done something genuinely impressive. Who Is KK Downey? is a rare beast: a truly independent film and, more importantly, a comedy—a Canadian comedy, no less—that’s genuinely funny and different. It exists outside the often dispiriting system of Canadian film production, made on a shoestring, with no help from our country’s various film funding agencies. And so far, it’s been a success, at least with audiences, picking up awards at U.S. film festivals and a rave review from industry bible Variety.

Written by Kidnapper kids Darren Curtis, Pat Kiely and Matt Silver and co-directed by Curtis and Kiely, Who Is KK Downey? is set in the hipster scene of a city, that though not named, is much like our own (you’ll recognize plenty of Mile-End hotspots). Silver and Curtis play Theo and Terrance, respectively, a pair of degenerates trying to get their band off the ground. Silver’s also a novelist, but his book—about the sexual antics of a young truck-stop hustler—is having trouble finding a publisher, mostly because the author is so whitebread that his image undermines the book’s graphic, gritty glamour.

So the two concoct a plan: why not invent an author? And that’s where KK Downey comes in, a down-and-dirty fictional persona incarnated by a severely-bewigged Curtis. Soon he’s a literary sensation, though a snooty rock critic (Kiely) who works for a paper—that may or may not be based on the Mirror—is soon on the trail of the hoax.

Just like JT

The group make no secret of the fact that the film is inspired by the strange real-life case of author JT LeRoy, the young genius who befriended celebrities and wrote the novels Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, allegedly based on his own traumatic childhood experiences—and who turned out to be entirely the creation of writer Laura Albert, who enlisted a friend to dress up as LeRoy for public appearances.

“We’d been following the JT LeRoy story as it was developing, just thinking it was kind of a funny story,” says Silver. “And we’d also wanted to do a hipster movie for a long time: a movie about partying and being in Montreal and we kinda put the two together and that was it. It seemed like a feasible feature film for a bunch of idiots to do.”

The film marries the story of the literary hoax with a send-up of the hipster lifestyle now practised among the denizens of Montreal, Brooklyn, San Francisco and wherever else jaded young urbanites gather. Wild drinking and drugging, casual sex, preening pretension everywhere you look; it’s a demi-monde with obvious comic potential.

“I think the world that we lived in, and continue to live in, is just hilarious,” Silver says. “The way that people live their lives in Montreal and in these hipster communities all over the world is the most ridiculous way to live your life that you could possibly imagine.”

“It’s arrested development,” says Kiely.

“It’s just a preposterous way to live your life,” says Silver. “The way that you make your money, the type of apartments that you live in—especially in Montreal, you get to live so well, leading this very flimsy, shallow existence.”

“The kind of people that wake up in the morning and they’re like, oh yeah, I’ve gotta do something at 4:30 p.m.,” Kiely says. “That’s the world we live in. But we also wanted to celebrate that a little bit.”

“Everything’s exaggerated, so it doesn’t need to be geographically specific to Montreal,” says Curtis. “It’s a funland, it’s a make-believe world.”

No money? No problem

Making low-budget cinema is always a challenge, but the KK filmmakers still managed to set the bar preposterously high. For one, raising the funds. “We knew that if we had to go through Telefilm or SODEC or anything we probably would have gotten bogged down,” Curtis says. “So for us, that was a huge thing. I remember saying when were writing it that no matter what, in six months, we’re shooting this movie. Come hell or high water. If we’re making it for $20,000 or making it for $500,000, we just have to go into production.”

Raising the money was one thing; making what turned out to be a fairly complex cinematic effort on a tiny budget was another. “For about three weeks, we put human beings through things we never thought we’d ask somebody to do,” Silver says.

Of course, they couldn’t have done it without a little help from the community. “This movie was like a socialist experiment,” Silver says. “Everybody put in, it was crazy. Sala Rossa let us come in the morning and shoot for four hours and we smashed one of the lights.”

“We put a hole in the floor at Green Room,” Kiely adds.

“We were like, ‘Okay. We’re going to do a movie. We only have $200,000 to do it. Let’s do it in 86 locations. Let’s have 79 speaking roles. Let’s design it so it has to have 22 original songs that we need to get the rights for.’” (The soundtrack was eventually filled out with songs by Duchess Says, CFCF, Miracle Fortress, the Hidden Cameras, Creature and Young Galaxy, among others).

DIY distribution

And on top of the challenge of making a movie on their own, they’ve added the no less daunting task of self-distribution, surely the least glamorous facet of the movie game—booking theatres, marketing, shlepping promotional placemats from door to door (look for them in your local eatery). It’s hard, thankless work, and it shows the dedication these guys have to getting out their vision. “We’re running like a mini-distribution company out of coffee shops,” Kiely says. “We switch between cafés when they get too annoyed at us. Now we bring a power bar to the coffee shops so we can all plug in our laptops.”

“The biggest challenge is not having enough funds to do it, and just thinking of cheaper and cheaper ways to get the product out there,” Curtis says.

“The hardest thing for us is that every audience that we show the film to ends up really enjoying the movie,” says Kieran Crilly, a longtime Kidnapper associate and one of KK’s producers. “But it’s getting those numbers out. Getting the film put in front of enough eyeballs to start that critical mass going. You can have the best movie in the world, but if not enough people see it, it’s just going to live in basements and community centres.”

The filmmakers have a challenge for audiences too. “There’s another piece of trivia about KK,” Silver says. “And that’s what the initials stand for. There’s a clue in the movie as to what the two Ks stand for, and if anybody figures it out—big prize. Huge prize!”

Oh yeah? What’s that? “Possibly, in about two years, a DVD copy of the movie Who Is KK Downey?. Or a poster. Or possibly a t-shirt. Or a small button.”

“Or a placemat,” says Curtis.

WHO IS KK DOWNEY? OPENS AT THE
AMC FORUM ON FRIDAY, SEPT. 5. THE
FILMMAKERS WILL BE ON HAND FOR
Q&AS THIS WEEKEND, AND EVENING
SCREENINGS THROUGHOUT THE WEEK