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"Matt Farley is the “greatest songwriter ever,” according to himself. If you have any issues with that, you can contact him on the personal phone number provided in his Twitter bio—he’d be happy to hear you out. The Massachusetts native has successfully gamed the streaming system, releasing enough music to cover every possible search engine niche on Spotify—as noted in a recent write-up in the New York Times. The Spotify residuals are enough to afford Farley a middle-class life and to continue making his backyard, low-budget films, with director, co-writer, and long-time friend Charlie Roxburgh. Farley has been passionate about making films for most of his life, but he’s collaborated on 15 entirely independent features for the past two decades with Roxburgh, his college friend (aside from LOCAL LEGENDS, thus far Farley’s only directorial credit).
"Under the curtain title of Motern Media, Farley and Roxburgh have remained overwhelmingly underground for the past 25 years. But their eccentric work has begun to swim to the mainstream surface through word of mouth, spurred back in 2018 by way of Will Sloan and Justin Decloux’s Important Cinema Club Podcast. Their films are absurd, uniquely told narratives made with the time, skills, and resources available—often stretched to their furthest limits. Imbued with creative spirit, “for the love of the game” mentality, and almost entirely non-actor casts plucked from family and friends, Motern films are free from typically held filmmaking ideals and produce a completely singular means of storytelling and filmmaking. Whether it’s a B-movie homage (DON’T LET THE RIVERBEAST GET YOU!), absurd auto-fiction (LOCAL LEGENDS), heartwarming fantasy (MAGIC SPOT), or brooding drama (HEARD YOU GOT MARRIED), Farley and Roxburgh have almost certainly crafted a type of film that you have never seen before. Following our pandemic-era streaming-only retrospective, the Spectacle is proud to welcome Farley and Roxburgh to the theater for presentations of four Motern classics.
"Programmed in collaboration with Brianna Zigler." —Spectacle