On Wednesday, September 11, we’re celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the cult-classic SLC Punk! with a free screening at 7 p.m. at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in downtown Salt Lake City. It’s part of our Through the Lens series, a partnership with Utah Film Center. Director James Merendino will be there for a post-film Q&A with RadioWest host Doug Fabrizio.
Revisit the cult classic that portrayed Salt Lake’s counterculture scene before anyone – outside Utah – knew it existed.
To grow up in America is to, at one point or another, rebel against the world around you. If you’re Stevo and you live in Reagan-era Salt Lake City, then, well…you just have to rebel a little bit harder. To this recent grad, the world is his enemy, anarchy his religion, and the Ramones, The Specials, and the Dead Kennedys his muses. As he takes us on a guided tour of his life, we meet all sorts of punks, poseurs, mods, freaks, and a few others best described as indescribable.
Stevo’s ex-hippie father sees his lifestyle as a rite of passage and urges him to attend Harvard Law School like himself. Not to sell out to the system, but to buy in. For Stevo, underneath the mohawk haircuts, earrings, and leather, the idea, painfully, has some merit. The question becomes; how do you stay hard-core and still hope for a life beyond?
Directed by James Merendino
97 min | 1999 | USA | Rated R
Presented in 35mm
Official Selection: 1999 Sundance Film Festival
Note: RadioWest is on a short hiatus, but we will still be airing our monthly documentary film series shows throughout the summer.
You can watch the trailer, and find more information about the film here.
