Alison Maclean (Crush) is now directing the feature adaptation of cult fave Denis Johnson’s nihilistic short story collection Jesus’ Son. The linked stories are set in the ’70s drug culture and cover four years during which a young addict in his twenties stumbles towards sobriety along a path studded with hallucinations, misapprehensions and self-destructive impulses. Ultimately, Jesus’ Son is about redemption; as the addict antihero, called only Fuckhead, walks his personal stations of the cross he’s as often overcome by ecstasy as by despair.

The film cuts back and forth through time as Fuckhead (Billy Crudup) works in an old age home and a warehouse for the deformed. Along the way he meets an astonishing procession of grotesques played with sly humor by Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary and Holly Hunter. Fuckhead also has a girlfriend, played by Under the Skin’s Samantha Morton, although she’s just as likely to bring him his destruction as his salvation. Maclean calls Jesus’ Son "a kind of cubist narrative that comes at the train wreck of [Fuckhead’s] life from many different angles."

New Zealand-born Maclean was accorded high praise and indie A-list status for Crush, her first feature, after the film debuted in competition at the ’92 Cannes film festival and went on to Sundance and Toronto. Previously, she’d already drawn enthusiastic buzz with Kitchen Sink, a grisly short that also played Cannes’ competition and screened at Sundance. More recently Maclean directed episodes of Sex and the City, Homicide and Subway Stories. She was sought out to direct Jesus’ Son by producers Elizabeth Cuthrell and David Urrutia, theater professionals making their first foray into film. Cuthrell and Urritia had already secured rights to Johnson’s book and written a screen adaptation with Interview film critic Oren Moverman. With Maclean on board, Cuthrell, Urritia and Moverman raised equity financing under their new Evenstar Films banner and added experienced hands-on producers Lydia Pilcher (Chinese Box) and Margot Bridger (Arresting Gena) to their team.

Jesus’ Son was shot in Philadelphia over seven weeks beginning January 14, with a second unit capturing a day’s worth of key location atmosphere in Tucson, Arizona. An eclectic soundtrack drives the film and reflects time shifts in the narrative. At press time the filmmakers were editing in New York; all rights are available.

Cast: Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary, Jack Black, Will Patton, Greg Germann, John Ventimiglia. Crew: Producers, Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia, Lydia Pilcher; Executive Producer, Steve Tuttleman; Co-Producer, Margot Bridger; Associate Producer, Oren Moverman; Screenwriters, Cuthrell, Urrutia, Moverman; Director, Alison Maclean; Cinematographer, Adam Kimmel; Production Design, David Doernberg; Casting, Laura Rosenthal, Ali Farrell; Editor, Stuart Levy; Production/Post Supervisor, George Paaswell. Contact: Elizabeth Cuthrell, Evenstar Productions, 393 Broadway, New York, NY 10013. Tel: (212) 219-2020, Fax: (212) 219-2323.

Adios, East Los - William Douglas Lansford
Adventures of a Catholic Atheist - John Mendoza
Bullfighter - Rune Bendixen
The Citizen - Jay Anania
Hit and Runway - Christopher Livingston
Jesus’ Son - Alison Maclean
The Photographer - Jeremy Stein
Wang Dang - Tom Noonan
The Young Unknowns - Catherine Jelski