Winnebago Man

With the onset of viral video comes a new and sometimes discomfiting age of accidental celebrity, where the stars of obscure clips suddenly become a workplace distraction for millions. In the past, such clips were circulated only as fast as eighth- or ninth-generation dubs could be produced, but now the collective response is instant, overwhelming, and perhaps a little dangerous.

Jack Rebney, known alternately as ‘Winnebago Man’ or ‘The Angriest Man In The World,’ beat a path to reclusiveness even before the outtakes from his RV industrial video found their way onto YouTube. For years, found-footage connoisseurs wondered what happened to the spectacularly profane man who cursed his way through a grueling two-week promotional shoot for Winnebagos in 1989. After some investigation, director Ben Steinbauer located Rebney on a mountaintop in northern California, where he’d been living alone, only vaguely aware of his fame, and somewhat suspicious of it.

Saying more about Rebney’s state of mind would spoil the surprises that animate Winnebago Man, which is one of those thrilling instances where reality grabs a filmmaker by the lapels and drags him (and us) to unexpected places. Steinbauer’s eagerness to draw information – and, let’s face it, exclusive new clips – out of his recalcitrant subject borders on exploitation at times, but the smart, cagey Rebney has an agenda of his own that Steinbauer can’t entirely control or define. The documentary gives him a forum to be his funny, irreducible self, which is a luxury the accidentally famous are rarely afforded.”

                  – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

PLUS

Captain Sorelski and the Women in Search of SPACEGOLD is the first video production by a collective of ByTowne Cinema employees: Matt Miwa, Lesley Marshall, Jeremy Latawiec, Sheri Borts, Geneviève Morin, Emilie Dugas and Alex Brant-Dumas, who you might recognize as having sold you popcorn or movie tickets. After years in the world of cinema, the group has, with the help of SAW Video's JumpstART Video Production Fund, begun to create projects of their own; the sci-fi farce SPACEGOLD is the first of three planned productions.

SPACEGOLD follows the debonair Captain Turner Sorelski (Jeremy Latawiec) and his feisty yet inept crew. As the crew members hilariously bemoan their sexual frustrations, Sorelski secretly manoeuvres himself ever closer to his goal of finding SpaceGold!  All goes according to plan until the ship is hijacked and Sorelski comes face to face with his nemesis, Captain José Chouinard (Alex Brant-Dumas), hellbent on revenge.

Set in a Star-Trekian world in decay, and rooted in lowbrow kitsch and B-movie genius, SPACEGOLD is a ridiculous, sexy space adventure grasping for titillation, where greed and treachery fuel an epic journey towards revenge.