Event

Last American Freak Show

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the last American Freak Show. Careering across America in a ramshackle old school bus, run on stolen vegetable oil, and piloted by Lowrent the Clown. Samantha X and Dylan have started their own show, staring such self-defined freaks as The Lobster Girl, The Half Woman, Dame Demure, and The Elephant Man. This
motley crew of outsiders are resurrecting the dying art of the sideshow, but with attitude. They flaunt their disability - what makes them `different' is also what unites them.
A powerful road movie with a most unlikely group of protagonists, it explores the nature of society's relationship with the notion of, the `freak', Butchins' documentary was originally scheduled to be screened
in a joint event with the London Disability Arts Forum and Bafta, for a Bafta audience. But Bafta refused to screen the movie saying "it raised too many questions"

Director Richard Butchins in attendance for Q & A

Disabled people calling themselves freaks, enjoying it, and hitting the road to exhibit their deformities, tell their stories and entertain a paying audience. This isn't a story that's traditionally acceptable. The film is as far removed from the cliches of disability in cinema as it is possible to be. The Last American Freak Show is an evocative, compelling, often funny and personal documentary looking into the world of the disabled and the sideshow. A world you never knew existed.