The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel

Los Angeles, the end of the seventies. Four boys meet at a school. Hillel plays guitar, Flea moves from trumpet to bass, Anthony likes being on stage and Jack is on drums. The punk scene is growing in the clubs and they form a band. The name is chosen like a joke. The concerts are odd; there are not even clothes on stage. Then a record deal comes and the work grows. Heroin comes in at the same time. Hillel dies in 1988. The documentary looks back from the present and moves through what the survivors say. Ben Feldman directs. Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Alain Johannes and people around the band speak in it. It is an American production. The documentary screened at the SXSW festival and went out on 20 March 2026. What is at its centre is not the founding of a band but a friendship; the music is secondary. The documentary works with a wide archive; home recordings, early concerts and photographs are used. Hillel Slovak's own drawings and journals are inside the narrative. The narrative gives the addiction not as an element of story but directly as a loss. The narrative does not go into the band's later years and does not describe the period that is known. Its limit is scope; the narrative covers a narrow period and the context is missing for anyone who does not know the band. Who it is for: viewers who like music documentary and are curious about the punk scene. Who it is not for: the subject is narrow, it is sad, and the ending bitter.