New Irish Documentary, Best Before Death, Following Former Popstar Bill Drummond, Opens in Cinemas this Friday 4 October
Posted: 2nd October 2019
Irish Director Pual Duane's latest documentary, Best Before Death will be released in cinemas this Friday 4 October.
Best Before Death follows artist Bill Drummond, a former popstar in the group The KLF, who since 2014, has embarked on a 12 year world tour visiting various locations, where he carries out his self-imposed 'work' of building beds, baking cakes, shining shoes - to the variously amused, perplexed or annoyed reactions of those around him. Drummond calculated that his life expectancy is at 74 and the world tour will end when he's 73. The documentary follows Drummond for two years of this tour; in 2016 when he based himself in Kolkata and in the Spring of 2018, when he was in Lexington, North Carolina. Best Before Death is a film about life, death, art, money, music, cake - and some knitting.
Director Paul Duane, who has been making films, dramas and documentaries for twenty years shadowed Bill for three years prior to filming Best Before Death to get a feel of what Bill's permise was. The documentary was also filmed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Robbie Ryan (Slow West, The Favourite).
Best Before Death had its world premiere in June 2019 as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and has since received praise from critics including the The Guardian, which praised the film's premise and Drummond's "Zen creative quest: not for happiness, but for the circumstances in which happiness will come to him." The film will be bookended by a new play, written and performed by Drummond that is inspired by people’s reactions to the film, titled White Saviour Complex.
Best Before Death was produced by Paul Duane and Robert Gordon,and executively produced by Celine Haddad for Screen Ireland, Ben Wheatley & Andy Starke for Rook Films, and Finlay Pretsell for the Scottish Documentary Institute