THE UNICORN
dir. Isabelle Dupuis & Tim Geraghty, 2018
92 mins. United States.
In English.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 7:30 PM

All screenings with filmmakers in person for Q&A!
(These events are $10.)

THE UNICORN follows Peter Grudzien, the one-man musical force behind The Unicorn, possibly the first gay country album. An incredibly prolific songwriter, Peter composed, performed and recorded The Unicorn LP (1974) in his childhood home in Queens, NY. It is now a cult classic. Peter would eventually compose and rearrange more than 900 songs throughout his lifetime, but the toll of mental illness cut short any hope of commercial success or recognition. Now 65-years-old, Peter and his twin sister, Terry (who suffers from schizophrenia) share their dilapidated childhood home with their nonagenarian father, Joseph, in Queens, New York, struggling each day to maintain a precarious balance on the margins of society.

When not battling outbursts of paranoia, Peter, the more functional of the pair, spends his life struggling for recognition as a musician – billing himself as a “gay country singer”. He enjoys limited notoriety as an ‘Outsider Musician’, but the promise of commercial success stops there. Peter lives inside of his music, surrounded by records, instruments and home-recording gear, using the chaos of his life and mental illness as a springboard for his musical ideas. He tests his new material, from love songs for Johnny Cash to Country ballads of dehumanization, on stage at a local gay karaoke bar.

While THE UNICORN began as a grad school short, it blossomed into a full length feature, a two and a half year slice of life portrait of a dedicated artist at the edge of the world. Reluctantly embraced by Peter and his family, Dupuis and Geraghty are granted unfettered access to a world lurking just beneath the surface brimming with tenderness and an eye for detail. Presented in earnest without a hint of sensationalism, the wrecking ball moments hit especially hard. After a year of touring and scooping up awards all over the world, THE UNICORN lands back in Brooklyn this February.