Kickstart This! Jeffrey Schwarz's I AM DIVINE Needs Your Help

You may not know his name, but Jeffrey Schwarz is probably one of the most interesting documentary filmmakers around these days. Schwarz and his company, Automat Films, are behind some of the most fun, entertaining, and engrossing documentaries of the last decade. Automat cut its teeth creating bonus material for DVD in the early 2000's, mainly with Schwarz in the director's chair. In fact, if you dare to peek at his IMDB page, he's got well over 100 titles to his credit. However, interspersed within those films are a few stand-alone features documentaries that are well worth seeking out.

Now, the director of Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, Vito, and Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon needs your help. Schwarz and company have embarked upon creating a comprehensive film documentary of the life of Glen Milstead, better known as John Waters' muse Divine. A lot of the film has already been shot, including tons of interviews that can be sampled below, but they are now seeking the ever-elusive completion funds to make I am Divine a reality.

Automat is looking for a total of $40,000, and they are willing to give up some pretty cool swag in return. I won't list it all here, but any feature that is willing to trade my $50 for a Female Trouble tote bag has my cash. You can check the full list of rewards at Kickstarter.

I've only shilled for one other project on ScreenAnarchy, the VHS doc Rewind This!, and you can be fairly certain that it will be a while before I do the same for any other film. This, however, is the kind of movie I want to see. A proven director who needs a little more cash to make his project happen and deserves community support. If you don't believe me, check out Vito and Spine Tingler!, they are fantastic films that deserve far more attention than they've been given.

I am Divine only has about 20 days left in their Kickstarter campaign, but surely the wonderful community of readers at ScreenAnarchy can help this dream come true.  Click here to go to their project page and contribute!