Belcourt member tickets on sale now! General admission tickets on sale Thu, May 15 at 10:00am.
Part of Nashville: A City On Film
Mon, Jun 30 at 8:00pm: Post-screening discussion with co-writer Bruce Arntson and director Coke Sams | BUY TICKETS
Set in a dystopian America where art is outlawed and artists are hunted by the political right, the flamboyant Existo leads a resistance to save free thought and democracy. Operating from an underground nightclub teeming with anarchists, queers, and hypocritical elites, he and his guerrilla troupe reignite a profane, genre-bending cabaret — challenging theocratic repression through spectacle, satire, and dangerously bold creativity.
Shot in 1998, this Nashville-made oddity eerily foresaw post-Bush America. A cult classic among insiders, EXISTO boasts a murderer’s row of Ernest metaverse and local theatre talent, including Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, Barry Scott and Jenny Littleton. Co-written and scored by auteur Bruce Arntson (The Doyle & Debbie Show) and directed by ERNEST SCARED STUPID (1991) co-writer Coke Sams, the film polarized critics but remains a celebrated “IYKYK” reference with locals.
A campy, chaotic, challenging theatrical musical — if Altman’s NASHVILLE (1975) predicted the culture war, EXISTO marched into battle. Did America become Nashville, or did Nashville become America?
“EXISTO represents an unprecedented mobilization of the city's film, TV and theater communities, in the long tradition of Music Row bohemians and rule-breakers like Jack Clement.” —Jim Ridley, Nashville Scene “A modern-day successor to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and the early John Waters films: freaky, free-spirited and fun.” —Kevin Nance, The Tennessean “Nashville friends have created a disaster…. It fails brilliantly.” —David Finnigan, Variety
