FLIPSIDE Trailer: Documentarian Chris Wilcha Reflects on a Life of Shelved Projects, Records, and Creative Meaning

Filmmaker Chris Wilcha looks back on a life of lost passion projects and memories in his newest documentary Flipside. The film is the product of Wilcha returning to the New Jersey record store where he worked as a teenage clerk to find his youthful zeal and rediscover himself creatively. The doc had its world premiere at TIFF 2023. It also features appearances by Judd Apatow (also an executive producer), Deadwood creator David Milch, and radio personality Ira Glass – with whom Wilcha helped bring This American Life to television. Oscilloscope Laboratories has released the official trailer ahead of its May 31 release at NYC’s IFC Center.

In his review from TIFF, HtN’s Chris Reed wrote “…The documentary is even more a cinematic contemplation of the search for meaning. As such, it is deeply satisfying, both to the director and the viewer… It’s an enjoyable journey, both discursive and direct, through recent history and the rapidly receding present, offering ideas to which most of us who struggle to make sense of our decisions can relate. Life is filled with a series of adventures big and small. Never be afraid to revisit yesterday and reconcile it with today. Resolution (of a sort) may be just around the corner.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

When filmmaker Chris Wilcha revisits the record store he worked at as a teenager in New Jersey, he finds the once-thriving bastion of music and weirdness from his youth slowly falling apart and out of touch with the times. FLIPSIDE documents his tragicomic attempt to revive the store while revisiting other documentary projects he has abandoned over the years. In the process, Wilcha captures This American Life icon Ira Glass in the midst of a creative rebirth, discovers the origin story of David Bowie’s ode to a local New Jersey cable television hero, and uncovers the unlikely connection between jazz photographer Herman Leonard and TV writer David Milch. This disparate collection of stories coheres into something strange and expansive—a moving meditation on music, work, and the sacrifices and satisfaction of trying to live a creative life.

Check out the trailer below.

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