Filmmaker and Nashville native Davis Watson, who’s currently based in Los Angeles, has been hosting documentary screening nights “for a long, long time.”
“It used to be a hard sell, but now everyone loves docs,” says Watson.
Watson recently launched Paradocsical — a project and website featuring a “collection of over 400 of the greatest documentaries of all time.” On the site, you can find Watson’s extensive, curated lineup of documentaries filed under categories like “free streaming” and “watch with subscription,” complete with details, trailers and links.
On Monday, April 1, Watson is returning to Nashville to pair with local arts booster and venue owner Nicholas Schurman of Soft Junk. The East Side event space will host a double-header of two legendary documentaries: Jacob Young’s Dancing Outlaw, a 1991 doc centering on Appalachian folk dancer and notorious subculture figure Jesco White; and one of my absolute favorites, Chris Smith’s spectacular 1999 effort American Movie, which follows Wisconsin filmmaker Mark Borchardt on his quest to make an independent horror short called “Coven.”
Both docs are exceptional slices of late-20th-century Americana — the kinds of films that are rediscovered again and again by new generations of burgeoning documentary fans. Watson tells the Scene that his long-term goal for Paradocsical “is to try to help with that problem for 99 percent of amazing documentaries — they go to a couple festivals, and if they don’t get bought, they sort of languish and then fade away.”
“We want to shine a light on a lot of important classic and contemporary documentaries, pull in the filmmaker when possible for screenings and interviews, and be a great resource for people,” says Watson.
Doors for Monday’s two-part screening will open 7:30 p.m. at Soft Junk (919 Gallatin Ave.). Misguided Spirits will be there making drinks, and the evening’s suggested donation is $10.
Watson says he and Schurman have discussed scheduling another Paradocsical screening in July, and that another of my personal favorites is in the running for that one — 1997’s delightfully outlandish Hands on a Hardbody.
Find more details at the Paradocsical site, and watch a clip from Dancing Outlaw and the trailer for American Movie below.
