The Dirties

A film set in a Canadian high school and told entirely through a camera inside it. Matt and Owen are the outcasts of their class. Both are film-mad; they recite lines constantly, act out scenes, and talk to nobody. They are making a project for school. It will be a film of their own and the subject is set: two people taking revenge on those who bully them. The villains in it are real. They use the names of the boys who hit them at school, throw their things about and shove them in the corridor; in the film they call them the Dirties. There is a camera crew as well. A documentary is being shot and the whole film consists of that crew's footage. They hand the project in. The teacher will not accept it because of the swearing and it is not shown in class. From there the film becomes a story of drift. Owen starts to socialise, talks to a girl, and loses interest in the project. Matt is left alone. He goes on making the second part of the film, and this time the gun will be real. What the narrative is interested in is not bullying but the camera: Matt sees everything as a scene and plans what he will do as the finale of a film. The cameraman never speaks. His presence is felt throughout but he does not intervene, and that puts the audience somewhere uncomfortable. The references to cinema are constant. The two boys repeat scenes from well known films and the narrative uses that as a language. The director also plays the lead, and the film was shot on a very low budget in a real school; most of the students in it are not actors. Matt Johnson, Owen Williams and Krista Madison are in the cast. Matt Johnson directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes the found footage form and uncomfortable independent film. Who it is not for: anyone who wants to stay away from the subject; the narrative moves towards a school shooting and does not soften it at all.