I Was Born, But... 2004. USA. Directed by Roddy Bogawa. 16mm. 90 min.
The death of Joey Ramone sparks a remembrance of youthful nights passed (and passed out) in punk clubs of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Traveling from New York to Los Angeles to Hawaii and back again, Bogawa captures a seemingly unrecoverable moment in the history of rock, and in his own history as an artist and an Asian American. Pleasant dreams or a road to ruin, I Was Born, But… features live footage of the Korean alternative rock band Seam, material from the last U.S. tour of Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, an original score by Chris Brokaw (of the bands Come and Codeine), and Bogawa’s own still photographs of X, Killing Joke, Stiv Bators, The Minutemen, and other legendary bands, taken some 30 years prior.