Description:

Nuts! (Penny Lane, 2016, USA, DCP, 79min)

NUTS! is a feature length documentary [directed by Penny Lane] about Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius who built an empire in Depression-era America with a goat testicle impotence cure and a million watt radio station.

Using animated reenactments, interviews, archival footage, and a hilariously unreliable narrator, NUTS! traces Brinkley’s rise from poverty and obscurity to the heights of celebrity, wealth and influence in Depression-era America.

Along the way, he transplants tens of thousands of goat testicles; amasses an enormous fortune; is (sort of) elected Governor of Kansas; builds the world’s most powerful radio station; invents junk mail, the infomercial, the sound-truck and Border Radio; hosts some epic parties; and annoys the heck out of the establishment, until finally his audacious actions force the federal government to create regulations to stop him.

Q&A with filmmaker after the screening

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New Documentaries -
This film series, in partnership with Northwestern University MFA in Documentary Media program, highlights two feature films and five new short films in the hybrid-documentary genre, which mixes nonfiction with traditional fiction filmmaking. All filmmakers will be in attendance to discuss their work.