By April MacIntyre Dec 30, 2008, 2:19 GMT
After the most successful VOD performance in IFC Free history, director Jeanie Finlay's Goth Cruise will premiere on IFC in January, 2009.
Jeanie Finlay
The show will air Wednesday, January 7 at 06:50 AM and 01:15 PM and Tuesday, January 20 at 08:25 AM and 01:15 PM
Grab your eyeliner, dust off your black leather trousers and prepare for IFC’s riotous black celebration.
The unusual cruise ship takes 150 British and American Goths as they sail around the Caribbean for five days on the recent 4th Annual Goth Cruise. The week long jaunt includes a masquerade ball, a fashion show, a charity art-auction, moonlight swims, ‘Club Goth at sea’ events and formal dining. More traditional cruise pursuits include shuffleboard and a shore visit to the tropical port of Bermuda.
You will also get to experience the famous Whitby Goth Festival in the UK (the birthplace of Goth).
The documentary follows a gaggle of British Goths (some cruise veterans, some virgins) in their home environment, then follows them to the U.S. to meet their American counterparts. From there these two groups embark on their Caribbean tour. However, there isn’t only tension between the 150 Goths and 2,500 non-Goths (“Norms”) onboard this luxury cruise ship of the damned. As one Goth Cruiser says: “Cruises attract two particular types of people: the morbid, and the morbidly obese.”
Just how do you reconcile sweeping sadness, morbid fascination and the beauty of enduring pain while sipping a Pina Colada in the Caribbean? Is hell really other people, or is it just sharing a boat with Hawaiian shirt clad senior citizens? Goth Cruise answers these questions and more, carried along by a strong Goth/Calypso soundtrack, proving that with enough rum and factor 50, even Satan’s chosen ones won't spontaneously combust in the sun.
Featuring: Musicians Wayne Hussey (The Mission/ Sisters of Mercy), Voltaire, and Andi Sex Gang with a soundtrack featuring Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, The Fields of the Nephilim, Rome Burns and more.
Artist and documentary-maker Jeanie Finlay was steeped in Goth early on, then eventually grew out of it. "When I was 17 years old I threw out my pink, bought a black fringed skirt, crimped my dyed hair, bought Bauhaus’ back catalogue and gave my heart to Robert Smith (The Cure).The pop charts didn’t offer solace for my troubled adolescent heart in the same way that Andrew Eldridge of The Sisters of Mercy and Morrissey could. When he sang - “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” - it was like he had written it just for me."
Her geographic location made her a perfect candidate to delve into the dark side.
Finlay explains: "Growing up in the North East of England within spitting distance of Whitby, the home of Dracula, there were pretty much two choices of tribe available to me: Goth or not."
Age and changing tastes got the better of her: "After two years of being a card-carrying member of the Goth community I started to tire of black, black, black and more black. Art College beckoned and I felt that there were different ways to express my individuality than wearing the cookie cutter uniform of a dark rebel. Gradually the black in my wardrobe was replaced by more and more color and less than six months later Goth was merely a phase I had gone through."
Finlay rediscovered her interest in Goth after a fateful event. "Over 15 years later I attended the wedding of an old school friend. At school she was the archetypal Siouxsie Sioux Goth with giant crimped hair and heavily kohled eyes that parents despised and I loved. Now in her early 40’s, when she walked down the aisle we were met with the proof of what happens if you never grow out of Goth. She was a vision in black, channeling Mortiticia Adams from her floor length gown to her black veil. She was so exotic that I couldn’t help but feel like a ‘mundane’ and admire her commitment and staying power."
Finlay elaborated: "Seeing this face from my past who really seemed to embody “Goth till I die” made me want to find other Goths who had also stayed the distance. Within a few clicks I had found thousands of them. Goth is as alive and well today as it was in the eighties when Bela Lugosi’s Dead was first released."
Finlay wanted to know more about those who committed to the Goth life. Her questions included her desire to find out why the enduring allure of Goth was so appealing to some. She wanted to know why do some people commit to Goth for life? How do grown up Goths earn a living, raise families and have fun? But the burning question that niggled at Finlay was, "just what the hell happens on a Goth Cruise?"
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