MySpace a place for friends

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: This revealing documentary about a teenage misfit will haunt viewers
Stephen Farber
Movie Critic

Many memorable dramatic films about adolescence have been made over the decades, but few of them can match the impact of "Billy the Kid," a striking, heartfelt documentary that deserves to have a long shelf life. Director Jennifer Venditti is a casting director who was interviewing high school kids in Maine for a short film. She came upon a young teenage boy, Billy Price-Baker, who didn't seem to fit with the other kids at his school, and she became intrigued by him and decided to see if she might gain entry into his world. Billy and his mother agreed to talk with her and share some of their secrets. What emerged is a portrait quite unprecedented in its candor and poignancy. Billy reveals the emotional problems that have plagued him since childhood. At one point, school administrators recommended that he be placed in a special school. His mother refused to accept their diagnosis, and it becomes clear that she was right. Billy's problems are not so different from typical adolescent alienation, and he clearly is a perceptive and bright boy who deserves a supportive environment where he might have a chance to flourish. Venditti followed Billy around and made him comfortable enough so that he opens up about the dark thoughts that he harbors, partly attributable to his history with an abusive father. Even more remarkable, while filming is under way Billy begins a tentative romance with Heather, a girl he courts at the local diner. The flush of first love rarely has been caught with such tenderness, and when the flirtation comes to a sudden end we're affected by the desolation that Billy feels. The film doesn't force a conclusion on us. It allows us to see that Billy has the potential to become dangerously antisocial, but he has a rock-solid ally in his mother, who proves to be far more generous and complicated than first impressions suggest. Like the best docus, "Billy the Kid" introduces us to some unique characters. Technically it's fairly simple but just accomplished enough to keep us riveted. Cinematographer Donald Cumming captures the small-town New England ambience. The movie's main virtue is its intimacy; it takes us astonishingly close to its characters, and this is a tribute to the trust and empathy that Venditti and her unobtrusive crew achieved. One hopes that the film finds a life in theaters, then on television and DVD, where it will last as an indelible record of adolescent turmoil.

TORONTO STAR REVIEW

Geoff Pevere
Movie Critic

In Jennifer Venditti's Billy the Kid, there's a long sequence in which an emotionally scarred 15-year-old boy finally works up the nerve to approach the girl he's been admiring from a painful distance. So deftly has the film aligned our emotional attachment to Billy, the ensuing exchange has all the raw, almost unbearable suspense of anything to be found in a contemporary Hollywood thriller. We pray that she will like Billy as much as we have come to. Billy the Kid: Jennifer Venditti's portrait of Billy, a keenly intelligent and preternaturally sensitive 15-year-old with selfdescribed "issues," is an extraordinarily affecting study in the life of an outsider. Following Billy as he cycles through the quiet streets of his small town, talking about music, love and the frustrating gap between imagination and reality, the film invites you to see the world his way. As quietly inspiring as it is genuinely heartbreaking, Billy the Kid is an act of passionate empathy.

INDIEWIRE


by Michael Lerman (March 15, 2007)
Easily the most-talked about documentary in this year's SXSW Film Fest, and with good reason, is Jennifer Venditti's "Billy the Kid". To say the film is a haunting, intimate portrait of a teenage boy struggling through the regular hardships of adolescence would be selling the film short. Venditti's work is one of the strongest directorial visions, one made over the course of eight shooting days and months of precise, creative editing. The first twenty minutes alone are worth the price of admission for the contribution to furthering the language of documentary. Venditti's pulls the audience in with a series of telling vignettes, wrapping us in the whirlwind of Billy's life and dropping us deep into the verite of his first relationship, all the while never undermining but rather enhancing her subject. The touching nature of Billy's story is the epitome of the emotional experience that this year's SXSW has been; a crucial factor in why the film won the top documentary jury prize.

SHORT SYNOPSIS

"I'm not black, I'm not white, not foreign…just different in the mind – different brains, that's all…" explains 15 year-old Billy in Jennifer Venditti's provocative coming of age film. Billy's intuitive commentary and intimate verit.. footage reveal a unique attitude as he responds to a painful childhood, first time love, and his experience as an outsider in small town Maine. By turns humorous and disturbing, this portrait challenges the viewer to look beyond labels and contemplate the future of a teen still in the process of becoming.

CREDITS

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Jennifer Venditti
PRODUCER Chiemi Karasawa
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Barnet Liberman & Bob Alexander
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS Jordan Mattos & Danielle DiGiacomo
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Donald Cumming
ADD'L CAMERA Paris Kain
EDITOR Michael Levine
ADD'L EDITOR Enat Sidi
SOUND DESIGN Damian Volpe
RE-RECORDING MIXER Tony Volante
ORIGINAL SCORE Christian Zucconi & Guy Blakeslee
TITLE & GRAPHIC DESIGN Seth Zucker

Billy and Spike Jonze                       Tony Bennett, Chris Eska (August Evening), Clint Eastwood, 
LA Film Festival                                Director/Producer Jennifer Venditti and Dustin Hoffman
                                                              LA Film Festival