Pierre Bismuth’s Where is Rocky II? to screen at museums around the World

French Academy Award-winning artist Pierre Bismuth’s acclaimed “fake fiction” documentary Where is Rocky II? will screen over the next two months at world renowned museums in Paris, London and Los Angeles.  The first screening will be at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on the 23^rd of November, with Bismuth and producer Grégoire Gensollen in attendance. The second will be at Tate Modern in London on the 9^th of December. The final will be at LACMA in Los Angeles on the 13^th of January, with Bismuth, Gensollen and screenwriters D.V. DeVincentis, Anthony Peckham and Mike White, actor Robert Knepper, and detective Michael Scott in attendance.

In 1979, American artist Ed Ruscha allegedly made a fake rock out of resin and hid it among natural rock formations somewhere in California’s vast Mojave Desert. Named Rocky II after the Sylvester Stallone film, the work is never spoken about publicly nor is it listed in any catalogue of Ruscha’s work. Obsessed with this mystery piece, Bismuth sets out to find it in Where is Rocky II?. Probing and inventive, this thoroughly original art quest blends documentary and fiction, and is as enigmatic as the mystery it seeks.

Bismuth’s directorial debut features High Fidelity and emmy winning The People Vs O.J. Simpson screenwriter D.V. De Vincentis, Sherlock Holmes and Invictus writer Anthony Peckham, School of Rock writer Mike White, “Hunger Games” and “Prison Break” star Robert Knepper and “This is Us” and “Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life” star Milo Ventimiglia. Art world luminaries such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art director Philippe Vergne, philanthropist and collector Eli Broad, and Hammer Museum chief curator Connie Butler, are also featured.

The film is produced by The Ink Connection’s Grégoire Gensollen.  UTA and Cinetic Media are handling domestic rights, with Mongrel International handling international sales. The film made its World Premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto last May, then opened Art Basel’s Film Program, and continued to the Locarno Film Festival, the São Paulo International Film Festival, opened Florence’s Lo schemmo dell’arte Film Festival and won the “Nouvelles Vagues” prize at La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival.

Bismuth is a French artist and filmmaker based in Brussels, whose practice can be placed in the tradition of conceptual art and appropriation art. His work uses a variety of media and materials, including painting, sculpture, collage, video, architecture, performance, music, and film. He is best known for being the author of the storyline of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2005, alongside Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman. 

Full details for all three screenings are below:

PARIS – 23^rd of November at 20:00

Cinéma 1, Centre Pompidou

Purchase Tickets: LINK

*Director Pierre Busmuth and producer Grégoire Gensollen will be in attendance

LONDON – 9^th of December at 19:00

Tate Modern, London

Purchase Tickets: LINK

*Director Pierre Bismuth will be in attendance

LOS ANGELES – 13^th of January at 19:30

Bing Theater at LACMA

Purchase Tickets: LINK

(Tickets will be available 2^nd of December, 2016)

*Director Pierre Bismuth, producer Grégoire Gensollen, screenwriters D.V. DeVincentis, Anthony Peckham and Mike White, actor Robert Knepper, and detective Michael Scott will be in attendance