“I never wanted to do cult,” John Waters says in reference to his filmography in light of the question of whether genuine cult films are still possible in the current age of new distribution strategies. “People liked it and it lost money. A few smart people liked it, the [financiers] want thousands of dumb people to like it!”
Speaking of thousands of people, if not necessarily all dumb, we’re speaking to Baltimore’s self-described ‘Pope of Trash’ a day ahead of him receiving an award at the Piazza Grande of Locarno, Switzerland, which hosts open air screenings for 8000 people each night as part of the Locarno Film Festival. For its 72nd edition, which took place in August, the festival honoured Waters with the Pardo d’onore Manor award for career achievement. Recipients of the Pardo d’onore at previous festivals have included Jean-Luc Godard, Ken Loach, William Friedkin, Jia Zhang-ke, Werner Herzog, Agnès Varda and Todd Haynes…
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