Bang Bang Baby

[projekktor id=’20511′]

Bang Bang Baby is a sci-fi musical written and directed by Jeffrey St. Jules. The Canadian filmmaker won the Claude Jutra Award at the 2015 Canadian Screen Awards, and the film won the Best Canadian First Feature Film award at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. The cast includes Jane Levy, Peter Stormare, Justin Chatwin, and David Reale.

BANG BANG BABY is an otherworldly musical about Stepphy, who lives in the sleepy 1960′s town of Lonely Arms with her alcoholic father. Stepphy dreams of escaping to a better life on the stage and screen, and when rock star Bobby Shore’s car breaks down in Lonely Arms, it seems her dream might be coming true. But when Fabian, the town creep, tells Stepphy that the local chemical factory is leaking dangerous purple fumes that can cause human mutations, Stepphy becomes obsessed with hiding these dark secrets from Bobby.

Using the musical structure to tell a sci-fi story might seem unconventional, but St. Jules found it was a great device to use. “I love musicals because they can play up the emotions of something, take it into the melodramatic, and that can be ok. I like melodrama in films, as long as it’s genuinely rooted in the character. In musicals there’s the appearance of artifice – because of course in real life people don’t usually go around singing – but at the same time there is something extremely truthful and ingenious about being moved to song. And since the world of this film is really the world of Stepphy’s imagination, it felt natural to have her emotions expressed in that way.”

Bang Bang Baby is rated PG.