Bullfrogs

A scavenger finds a body in the swamp. Moss is set on fire. The horror of being alive dissolves into a loving embrace. BULLFROGS is a transgressive re-telling of the damsel-in-distress story that veers into the absurd and macabre as it depicts a sacred land filled with both wonder and sacrificial offerings.

This dark fairy tale is a relic of Southern filmmaking from the 1990s. Originally filmed in glorious black & white 16mm, deep in the Louisiana swamp, BULLFROGS was a weekend experiment that never received a proper soundtrack and was eventually forgotten. Years later, as cinema became dominated by a clean, pixel-perfect aesthetic, Joseph decided that he wanted to preserve his old grainy and scratchy movie. He unearthed the footage and worked with composer Curtis Heath to give the film an original score. Heath put together a vintage chamber ensemble consisting of woodwinds, strings, an organ, and sound design elements provided by a waterphone, a coach's whistle, and wood blocks. What began as a project in the spirit of a 48-hour film challenge was finally completed after twenty years.

PAUL SOILEAU is a New York-based performance artist best known for his alter egos CHRISTEENE, a sexually infused sewer of live rap and vile shamelessness, and cabaret crooning Rebecca Havemeyer, an ageless bastard heiress of the boozy bygone Hollywood years.

LLYEWYN MÁIRE is an Ireland-based genderqueer artist who creates work through live art/performance activism, sound, movement, visual media, cooking and gastrOcCulture.

CURTIS GLENN HEATH is a Fort Worth-based composer, known for his work on the films “1985,” “America's Parking Lot, Pit Stop,” “Ain't Them Bodies Saints,” “Old Man & the Gun,” “Hellion,” “Sir Doug & the Texas Cosmic Groove,” and “J.R. Bob Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenus.” He holds a Masters Degree in Music Composition from the University of Chichester in the U.K., and has toured and recorded with the bands The Theater Fire and Howling Hex.

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