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Red Flag – Trailer from Adam Gins on Vimeo.
A lot of writers go through a phase where they write about writers. It’s a familiar subject, certainly, but also an extraordinarily self-indulgent one. In a way, it’s a slightly more evolved form of self-insert fanfiction, based on the writer’s life instead of a work of fiction and usually featuring less characters from Harry Potter. It can be done well on occasion, but it usually falls flat. Writing isn’t the only medium that inspires this phenomenon, but generally movies about making movies can be far enough away from the main character that they are more interesting and approachable.
So what happens when a filmmaker writes a script about a filmmaker writing a script and then makes a movie about it? Apparently, Red Flag happens. Written and directed by indie filmmaker Alex Karpovsky, Red Flag is about an indie filmmaker named Alex Karpovsky (played by actor Alex Karpovsky) who takes his indie film (presumably about an indie filmmaker named Alex Karpovsky) across the country after his girlfriend dumps him. The trailer says nothing about the filmmaker aspect of this, and instead focuses on Alex Karpovsky making out with people and talking about his girlfriend.
He also rips out his toenail, so that’s pretty cool. Red Flag premieres tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival.