Bitter Jester

Running time: N/A

World Premiere - Maija Di Giorgio was a comedian on the verge of big time success. Then one night in front of executives from HBO, she inexplicably cracked, shouting obscenities at the audience and walking off stage. Thus, her career as a stand-up was finished. So, Maija sets out on a two-year quest to find out what went wrong and to try to resurrect her dreams of making people laugh. Her bizarre and entertaining journey takes Maija from her deeply personal therapy sessions to traveling coast to coast as she seeks insight and wisdom from her fellow comics-among them George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Ray Romano, Jerry Stiller, Phyllis Diller, Kevin James, Colin Quinn, Bill Maher, and many others. Original, spontaneous, hilarious, and sometimes even scary, Bitter Jester is a brutally honest and rare glimpse into the world of stand-up-including all of the self-loathing and backstabbing that defines most comedians. It is a story of struggle, self-doubt, the emotional pain from which humor is born, and the powerful role it plays in uplifting us and keeping us sane. And like Maija, you won't know whether to laugh or cry. - Al Owens. Preceded by: Sprout (Scott Peterson, 4 min., United States) A wonderful 3D animated look at the birth of a sprout-from the geniuses at PDI/Dreamworks