Welcome to the Rubber Room

Short documentary filmed at the 1995 Burning Man festival

Our story begins in 1979, with a chance meeting in a Salt Lake City parking lot where filmmaker Trent Harris is approached by an earnest small-town dreamer from Beaver, Utah. Harris jumps at the chance when the young man invites him to come to the small town to film a talent show. At the show, the man dons a blond wig and performs in drag as Olivia Newton John. Harris captures it all on tape: A portrait of a true outsider. Harris shot a dramatic piece, "Beaver Kid 2" based on the documentary; This interpretation of the story, made in 1981 on a home video camera with a budget of $100, features a young Sean Penn as "the Beaver Kid". Still possessed, Harris then rewrote the script, cast up-and-comer Crispin Glover in the lead, and created the final segment, "The Orkly Kid", with funding from the American Film Institute. The trilogy unveils the inner world of a fantastic character in three incarnations.

An intellectual leaves the Cuban revolution and 'underdevelopment' behind only to find himself at odds with the ambiguities of his new life in the 'developed' world. A portrait of alienation, of an outsider with no clear-cut politics or ideology. A stranger in a strange land struggling with old age, sexual desire and ultimately the impossibility for the individual to belong in any society. The film's narrative is a collage of flashbacks, daydreams, and hallucinations comprising live-action, animation, and newsreel footage assembled to suggest the way personal memory works, subjectively and emotionally.

Reclusive Rubin Farr teams up with vocal but unsuccessful multi-level salesman Ed Tuttle on a quest to bury Rubin's dead cat in the "perfect spot." Their trip takes them across Utah's desert where they have run-ins with Ed's ex-wife Rula and an elusive Andy Warhol critic.

Larry (Crispin Glover) organizes a talent show in an attempt to get on TV but the small town of Orkly, Idaho, isn't ready for his Olivia Newton-John impersonation.

A woman accidentally discovers the Plaque of Kolob which leads her to discover an insidous alien plot for world domination documented by a disreputable early Mormon prophet. 'Plan 10 from Outer Space' is an eccentric comedy involving a bizarre relationship between Mormons, bees and extra terrestrials, hot on an obviously miniscule budget with a largely unknown cast, save for b-movie queen Karen Black.

An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.

A short documentary about the exploits of "Groovin' Gary", a performer that filmmaker Harris happened upon while filming for a Salt Lake City, Utah news station.

Luna, a young beauty has a fling with and older man then she finds him dead in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She also discovers his notebook filled with cryptic messages. The book leads her to Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mexico, and beyond as she tries to discover why is he dead. Finally Luna finds a run down café five miles from nowhere called Luna Mesa owned by a mystical goat farmer. He sets Luna on a new journey, one that will connect her heart with the divine.

Elder Braxton Barlow, a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while proselytizing in the streets of New York City with his missionary companion, encounters a fortune teller who gives a life-changing tarot card reading.

A spin-off of "Rubin and Ed" with a new cast of misfits who are once again lost in the desert.

Two sisters are thrown out of their isolation and onto opposite coasts of America by a terrifying cosmic entity. On their quest to reunite they discover their own supernatural abilities and meet many strange characters.

Is Joe really a nut lick­er? Trent Har­ris, one of America's strang­est filmmakers, asks this and other per­plex­ing questions in, The Wild Goose Chron­icles. Ban­ished from Holly­wood for the unfor­givable sin of making a flop, Harris sets out for Tim­buk­tu and places even more remote. Powered by lost loves, dead pets, and magic mush­rooms he wanders the world, discovers the "Giant Eye of Merv" in Turk­men­istan, naked beauties on the beach in Brazil, and crafty antelope on a bomb­ing range in Utah. It's TRUE, it's WEIRD, and it's on DVD.

In the not too distant future nincompoops are in charge, free thinkers are locked up, and some believe Bigfoot controls the major TV networks with a hat he constructed from windshield wiper blades. Intrepid woman chaser, Scott Vicious, and revolutionary madman, Franklin Musclewhite, may be America's last hope.

Shot on 42nd street and the subways in New York, "Subway" is an experimental short feature made with a Bolex and a step printer, accompanied by industrial background sounds which were created by processing dogs barking and a squeaky swing set with tape loops and an early synthesizer.

Aki Ra join­ed Pol Pot's mur­der­ous Khmer Rouge army at the age of nine. Twenty years later he roams the mine­fields of Cambo­dia in search of redemp­tion. Armed only with a stick and a pock­et­knife Aki seeks out and destroys some of the six million land­mines that infect his home. Shot in mine­fields, this film cont­ains footage that reveals just how dan­gerous Aki Ra's obsession is.