Reverend Billy
& The Church of Stop Shopping

documentary film | USA, Germany, Spain | 2002 | 60 min + 30 min interview | color


View trailer


The first documentary feature about the beginnings
of Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping.

Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Boston Herald

"A highly entertaining documentary film"
Boston Globe

"Fine piece of cinéma vérité"
University of California

"The film is a must for all people who believe that Michael Moore went mainstream"
Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival

"Which American TV will have the guts to show this film?"
Albert Maysles, Documentary Filmmaker, New York

"A documentary about the Messiah of Stop Shopping"
El País, Spain

"The most hilarious and pointed political theater in New York"
New York Times

 

Filmmakers Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios have accompanied the Reverend and his troupe over the period of an entire year. The film follows the Reverend's "shopping interventions/actions" into cultural dead zones within the island of Manhattan such as Starbucks, Disney and the New York University construction site at the Edgar Allan Poe House.

Reverend Billy, a.k.a. Bill Talen, is an actor/performance artist and a leading figure in the anti-globalization movement. His work combines the forces of social and political change with the means of theater arts to counteract our media culture. His artistic and political work is influenced by various concepts of "street theater." His disruptions or "shopping interventions" in public spaces are in the tradition of the Living Theater, José Bové, Lenny Bruce, The Yippies. New York Times theater critic Jonathan Kalb calls his work "the most hilarious and pointed political theater in New York, something that has to be done in the risky environment of the street." The actions/performances inside and outside of Starbucks coffee shops and Disney stores often end with the Reverend being arrested. He calls it stepping into somebody's imagined box. The police call it illegal trespassing. The Reverend claims that social change always begins with civil disobedience and includes as his heroes the civil rights, peace and labor movements.

 


DVD available for only 12 € at our shop

Special features:

Interview with Bill Talen (30 min)
German & Spanish Subtitles
Trailer
Crew Information

This DVD is codefree.

 

Additional information

The film is available on the following formats: DVD codefree NTSC w/Spanish&German subtitles,
Digibeta PAL, BetaSP PAL, BetaSP NTSC.

Movie theatres interested in screening the film should contact us at info@playloud.org

More information on Reverend Billy and his work can be found at www.revbilly.com

A series of newspaper/magazine articles are available here.

The Spanish Public Television TVE broadcasted a 2 minute piece on Reverend Billy and the documentary. Click here.