About the Film

We see how Darger survived a brutal institutionalised childhood and forged an incredible creative life rooted in the context of his time and place; how key sites were transformed in his imagination, and served not to inspire straight-forward fantasy but to memorialise his past, the forgotten and the dead, the anonymous and the unmourned, and to reflect the brutality of life. Darger is shown not as a creator of individual pieces but of a total work. The documentary also argues for Darger's relation to nature, disclosing an intense lyricism.

Filmed in the US, UK and Europe, the documentary brings together extensive interviews with rare film and video filmed as early as 1973, previously unseen photographs, unique archive sound recordings and unpublished Darger materials. 

From incredible chance survival to worldwide fascination, this is the strange afterlife of the last great unknown artist of the 20th Century.