SF Indiefest Spotlight: Do U Want it?

Smack dab in the middle of awards season, SF Indiefest, the now 20-year-old independent film festival in San Francisco, is right around the corner. With well over 50 events spanning across three venues throughout the city from February 1st to the 15th, Indiefest has been a constant in the face of two decades of ongoing change in San Francisco.

Amongst the wide field of talented filmmakers at the festival this year, Bay Area Native Josh Freund and Sam Radutzky are premiering their movie, Do U Want It?, for the first time in their hometown. The movie tells the story of New Orleans funk band “Papa Grows Funk” as a way to explore the lives of working class musicians and the unique relationship they have with their city.

In 2012, director Josh Freund left his home in the Bay Area for a completely different adventure down in New Orleans. Immediately, he was taken by the culture and warmth of the city, which lead to his discovery of “Papa Grows Funk”. The film follows the group of local music legends on their farewell tour after twelve years of playing together, and Freund hopes that the film helps “people to fall in love with New Orleans and feel like they got an inside look at a special nuanced subculture.”

That subculture provides a unique backdrop for the problem that all artists have faced at one point or another: What is success, and how do you manage the desire for personal creative fulfilment and the need for financial stability? This plight was not lost on the film’s creators, who worked with a limited budget throughout the project’s entirety:

“we have yet to pay ourselves one dime on this project. If we had budget to pay ourselves to work full time on the film, things would have moved faster.”

Despite the small budget, mostly coming from crowdsourcing, directors Josh Freund and Sam Radutzky have created something special in Do U Want It? The film has already been featured at several festivals across the country, and was awarded the Audience Award at the New Orleans Film Festival.

Do U Want It? Premiers in the SF Indiefest at the Roxie Theatre on Friday, February 2nd, at 7:00 P.M.
Tickets

Broke-Ass Stuart is a proud sponsor of SF Indiefest