Border Radio

Black and white, 35mm
USA, 1987, 84 min
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Border Radio, Allison Anders’s no-budget debut feature, is a first-hand look at LA’s punk scene, directed together with two film school friends, Kurt Voss and Dean Lent, while – as Anders recalls – she "partied and smoked and listened to Fairport Convention with a bunch of guys". In this black-and-white movie, a punk rock musician runs away to Mexico after stealing money from a sleazy club owner who failed to pay him, leaving behind a wife with a child and a best friend – who desperately tries to find him. Border Radio, featuring real musicians John Doe (X), Chris D. (Divine Horsemen) and Dave Alvin (Blasters), has been hailed as one of the best movies ever made about rock and roll.

About the director

Allison Anders was born in Ashland, Kentucky and spent her adolescence running away from home and hitchhiking around the country, sometimes ending up in jail or an institution. At 18, she left for England and returned with a baby girl. She settled in LA, worked as a midwife and a waitress in a bar, while studying philosophy and writing poetry. She decided to study film at UCLA, where she shot her first film on Super 8, Nobody Home. Anders is the mother of three children. Films: Border Radio (with Kurt Voss and Dean Lent, 1989), Gas Food Lodging (1992), Mi Vida Loca (1993), Four Rooms (episode The Missing Ingredient, 1995), Grace of My Heart (1996), Sugar Town (with Kurt Voss, 1999), Things Behind the Sun (2001). Kurt Voss see Down and Out with the Dolls