The Carter

Director: Adam Bhala Lough
Screenwriters: Adam Bhala Lough

Institute History

  • 2009 Sundance Film Festival

Description

The Carter is a documentary about Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. aka Lil Wayne. An internationally known rapper, his most recent album went platinum in a week, and he just might be the voice of his generation. But this ain't no VH1 rock doc. Rather, it is an intoxicating, cinematic journey into the thoughts and world of an extremely complicated man whose creative force is something to behold. He never stops recording. He has a portable studio that he carries around in a black bag, and it allows him to lay down a track anytime anywhere. It is his pressure valve and makes him a refreshing anomaly in a sea of manufactured prefab "singers." His work is his own: unfiltered, uncensored, raw, and powerful.

Director Adam Bhala Lough, whose fiction film Weapons premiered in competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, has unbelievable access to Lil Wayne's public and private lives. He captures remarkably candid moments, such as Lil Wayne recounting his first sexual experience, as well as him talking openly about his drug habits. Following him all over the country and to Amsterdam, Lough mixes fly-on-the-wall footage of Lil Wayne in his hotel room and on his bus with artfully composed concert footage. The result is a shockingly intimate portrait of one of the most inspired (and eccentric) musicians of modern America.

— Trevor Groth

Screening Details

Credits

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