Chicago Premiere of Drag City's SXSW Hit Film Dragonslayer

CHICAGO - New director Tristan Patterson's debut documentary, Dragonslayer, may be the millennial generation's Dogtown and Z Boys. Its Executive Producer, Christine Vachon (Boys Don't Cry), was the force behind The New Queer Cinema of the 1990 and countless queer films and filmmakers to this day, most recently the Gold Globe Award-winning HBO series Mildred Pierce directed by out filmmaker Todd Haynes. Patterson's screenplay Superstar 81 was also optioned by Christine Vachon for Killer Films. He is attached to direct attached to direct his own screenplay Electric Slide starring Ewan McGregor for Myriad Pictures. GOTR Editor-in-Chief met the staff of Drag City - the record label distributing Dragonslayer in association with Killer Films - during the premiere party at Rodan in Chicago's Wicker Park last week.

The Occupy Movement looks like a hipster dance party compared to the baggy pants and no shirt barbarian Josh "Skreech" Sandoval, the 23-year-old subject of the Dragonslayer. Skreech and his female companion, Leslie, build a fire oustide a makeshift shelter on the SoCal coast from the "stagnant" suburbs of Fullerton, CA where empty pools were commonplace in late 1970s during the reign of the Zephyr skating team. The film features a gummy, yet grungy international soundtrack from Chicago's own Drag City label as well as Mexican Summer and Kemado Records: Best Coast, Bipolar Bear, Children, Dungen, Jacuzzi Boys, Little Girls, The Soft Pack, Death and Thee Oh Sees. Many tracks are available to sample on Spotify.

Dragonslayer swept up two SXSW film festival awards in 2011, Cinematography and Best Documentary Feature, before taking the Best International Feature honor at HotDocs, Canada. Drag City (Chicago music label and niche film distributor) premieres Dragonslayer at Music Box Theatre this Wednesday, January 25th at 7pm, featuring live music and visuals by Bitchin Bajas, Mayor Daley (the band, not the man), Olivia Wyatt. Director Tristan Patterson will Skype in for a live Q&A.

These pot-smoking and boozy millennials live off the grid building fires on the rocky California coastline like anarchists, yet even Willy Nelson, mentioned in the trailer for refusing to pay income tax, must have to register his RV's license plate at the DMV. Skreech and his companion don't appear to be hippies or naturalists sewing their own clothes or mixing their own shampoo. Maybe they're numbed by the state of these United States. Can you blame them?

Dragonslayer is the second feature to be released theatrically by Drag City following Harmony Korineʼs Trash Humpers. After graduating from Yale University, director Patterson worked at Forensic Films on the first and only Dogma 95 movie made in America, Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey Boy. He has since written screenplays for Disney, Fox and Warner Brothers. He is currently writing American Cigarette for director Tony Scott at Fox 2000. John Baker is the producer of Dragonslayer. He spent 2+ years at HBO Documentary Programming working on the Emmy winning series The Addiction Project and Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke, amongst other titles. The music videos and short films he's produced have aired on HBO, Channel 4 (UK) and played major film festivals across the US. Prior to HBO he worked at Content Film, the former production company of Edward R. Pressman. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.

Look for more queer music, films, and a book in the works called Nice People Don’t Work in Hollywood about Curtis Harrington, queer horror film director and collaborator of cult filmmaker Kenneth Anger.

GOTR was unable to see the Dragonslayer before its release.

- Sawyer Lahr