It’s our pleasure to spotlight a true indie production today. Shot on a shoestring budget of around $5,000 during a 10-day road trip to Deadhorse, Alaska, Jacob Gregor’s End of History satirizes the bleak state of American culture, or what’s left of it. Making its world premiere at the Chicago Underground Film Festival this September, we’re pleased to premiere the exclusive trailer for the film starring Matt Calhoun, Brandon Daley, and Maddie Daviss.
Here’s the synopsis: “A man drives from his home in the Midwest to the top of Alaska, scrolling through reactionary YouTube rants and motivational content, searching for meaning in a landscape long since stripped of it. A satirically bleak lo-fi odyssey of strip malls, gas stations, and existential inertia, End of History filters America’s cultural collapse through the windshield of one man’s hollow pilgrimage.”
“Like everyone else I am addicted to my phone and social media. More and more of my feed started to be dominated by right-wing culture shit and the like. I can’t help but look directly at it, reading through the comments and profiles of people I would consider to have genuinely insane thoughts,” said the director. “I never had any interest in satirizing an Andrew Tate-type figure, but I have always been interested in the kind of reply guys people like that get. I wanted to make something slow, lonely, and filled with a sense of emptiness. I am certainly different from the main character of the film, but what I can relate to is his sense of isolation and the overall feeling of being dissatisfied with life.”
He added, “This film was made entirely by me and one actor as we thought up shots on a road trip from Chicago to Deadhorse, Alaska. 10 days of nonstop driving and pulling over to film scenes suddenly inspired by the landscapes around us. Basically the entire production budget was the hotels and cost of gas (around $5,000). It’s an indie in every sense of the word and I am incredibly proud of the final result.”
See the trailer below.
