Here is the first look trailer for Bliss, the Slamdance Spotlight Feature Film featuring Clint Jordan (Film Independent Spirit Award Nominee for “Virgil Bliss,” and TV series’ “American Crime Story,” “This is Us”), Faryl Amadeus (Spielberg Fellow and her upcoming feature film “Any Sign At All”), Juan Fernandez (“Crocodile Dundee,” A Man Apart”), and David Yow (“The Toxic Avenger,” “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore”).
In the film, an opioid addicted fugitive living off the grid in the desert canyons north of LA plays a twisted game of cat and mouse with a sexually repressed holy roller in search of her missing sister.
Directed by Joe Maggio, Bliss world premieres at Slamdance Film Festival on Friday, January 19th at 4:15pm. Second Screening on Thursday, January 25th at 12pm.
Virgil Bliss has been a fugitive for twenty years. His decision to return to the scene of his original crime and finally make amends is complicated by the sudden death of his girlfriend and fellow Oxy addict, Amy, and the unexpected arrival of Amy’s holy roller sister who catches Virgil up in a web of lies and deceit. At once a dark fable of persistence, perseverance, and the transformative power of love, but also a searing indictment of the American carceral system and our ongoing opioid epidemic. “Bliss” is the sequel to the 2001 Film Independent Spirit Award nominated debut feature “Virgil Bliss” and is the second installment of the Virgil Bliss Trilogy.
“Bliss” is the culmination of over 20 years of filmmaker Joe Maggio’s filmmaking experience – cinematic discoveries and creative breakthroughs. In the spirit of Michael Apted’s 7-UP series and Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” Maggio reunited with Clint Jordan, the star of the stories debut feature film “Virgil Bliss,” to pick up Virgil’s story over twenty years later. In many ways, Virgil’s journey has mirrored the filmmaker’s own journey – both set out with the best and purest of intentions, but somehow, either through fate or luck, always seem to get knocked a little off course. “Bliss” is the second film in a planned Virgil Bliss Trilogy. It also marks Maggio’s return to the filmmaking philosophy of “Incidental Cinema.” Incidental films are films made with total creative freedom. An incidental film can be commercially exploited, but market considerations play no part in its actual creation.
Watch the official trailer for Bliss