News from Brett Ingram of Bright Eye Pictures:

Bright Eye Pictures is thrilled to announce two new exclusive DVD releases for retail, wholesale, and institutional buyers. Just visit the store at our new website: www.brettingram.org

PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN (28 minutes, 1988) is the only film over which legendary stop-motion animator Bruce Bickford maintained complete creative control. Bright Eye Pictures is making PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN available to the public for the first time since its completion two decades ago. The DVD features a commentary track by Bickford, an alternate score by Shark Quest’s Laird Dixon, and the half hour documentary featurette, LUCK OF A FOGHORN: the Making of Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, directed by Brett Ingram.

Synopsis: Inspired by the Greek myth of Prometheus, a Titan who created the first mortals from clay and stole fire from the gods, Prometheus’ Garden immerses viewers in a cinematic universe unlike any other. The dark and magical images of this haunting film unfold in a dreamlike stream of consciousness revealing an unlikely cast of clay characters engaged in a violent struggle for survival. Enchanted forests, animated torture chambers, hamburgers that morph into mythical monsters, and epic battles between giants, fairies, and anachronistic historical figures populate just a small corner of Bickford’s animated universe. Like all Bickford films, Prometheus’ Garden defies description and simply must be experienced. In Clay Animation, film scholar Michael Frierson writes: “Bickford offers us a visionary landscape, a hallucinogenic retreat into magical settings where figure and ground may transform into the other at any moment, enchanted settings in which modern technocrats are easy villains and nature is under siege.” Bickford is an underground artist who has mystified animation critics and inspired generations of animators, while somehow eluding fame. He has been described as the world’s only “outsider artist” working in the medium of animation. He has been recognized as a “genius” by Frank Zappa and countless other iconoclasts. Under employment by Frank Zappa, Bickford relinquished creative control of his work (which was edited and scored by Zappa). Consequently, Prometheus’ Garden is Bickford’s most comprehensive and least compromised vision.

Best known for his collaborations with rock iconoclast Frank Zappa in the 1970s (THE DUB ROOM SPECIAL, BABY SNAKES, THE AMAZING MR. BICKFORD), underground animator Bruce Bickford has influenced generations of artists with his startlingly original vision.

What the critics are saying about PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN:

“Wildly imaginative and morbidly funny” - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Surreal, absurd and metaphorical” - ANIMATION MAGAZINE

“Psychedelic metamorphosis” - ANIMATION WORLD JOURNAL

We are also happy to announce the exclusive release of the new MONSTER ROAD “Collector’s Edition” DVD. This new version features a DVD-9 encode for superior image quality, plus the movie soundtrack by Shark Quest and 45 minutes of extras, including rare Bickford animation and deleted scenes from the documentary. MONSTER ROAD is a feature length documentary exploring the wildly fantastic worlds of legendary animator Bruce Bickford. Tracing the origins of Bickford’s iconoclastic worldview, the film journeys back to Bickford's childhood in a competitive household during the paranoia of the Cold War and examines his relationship with his father, George, who is facing the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. MONSTER ROAD was directed by Brett Ingram. MONSTER ROAD won “Best Documentary” at the 2004 Slamdance Film Festival, eventually screening at more than 90 festivals around the world and winning sixteen awards, before premiering on Sundance Channel in 2005.

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