See 'Gretchen' Tonight on Sundance Channel

in

Gretchen

Update: Check out this cool episode of Between the Scenes that includes some behind-the-scenes footage from the Gretchen shoot as well as cast and crew interviews. (Thanks to John Merriman for the heads-up.)

One of my favorite movies from SXSW 2006 was Gretchen, the story of a high-school girl who isn't exactly one of the beautiful people. Austin filmmaker Steve Collins expanded his short Gretchen and the Night Danger and kept two of its stars, Courtney Davis (in the title role) and John Merriman. The feature also includes Betsy Ann Baker as Gretchen's mom, and Stephen Root. The cinematographer is Austin filmmaker P.J. Raval, who has also photographed the Oscar-nominated doc Trouble the Water as well as other Austin films.

Gretchen has sadly never had a theatrical release and has not yet had a DVD release. So I urge you to watch Gretchen when it airs on the Sundance Channel on Tuesday (3/31) at 5:15 pm CST and again at 11:30 pm CST. As a bonus, John Merriman says he'll be live-tweeting his commentary of the movie during the earlier screening on Tuesday. He's one of the funniest Twitter users I know, so you may want to follow him tomorrow.

My review for Cinematical closed with this line: "Overall, Gretchen is a beautiful, delicate look at the nasty pains of teenage relationships. And Gretchen could totally kick Napoleon's ass."