a documentary by jenny abel & jeff hockett
a documentary by jenny abel & jeff hockett
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ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY:ABEL RAISES CAIN is an unprecedented glimpse into the life and bizarre career of Alan Abel, the notorious media prankster who has made a name for himself several times over with stunts that are just ridiculous enough to be believable, especially to a media that feeds on salacious stories. In this loving portrait of an eccentric father, Alan's daughter, Jenny, takes the audience on a roller coaster ride through the myriad of elaborate hoaxes and schemes that Abel pulled off over the years, all of which were designed to provoke, amuse and make people question everything that they see, hear or read. |
WAYS YOU CAN SEE 'ABEL RAISES CAIN':On Screen / In Person Tour March 2013!ABEL RAISES CAIN will screen in seven cities and towns throughout the mid-Atlantic U.S. in early March 2013 as part of the On Screen/In Person screening series! view the press release Tuesday, MARCH 5th, 2013 @ 7:00pm - Oswego, NY
Oswego Cinema
(co-sponsored by ARTSwego @ SUNY Oswego) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 @ 7:30pm - Richmond, VA
Firehouse Theatre Project
(presented by Modlin Center for the Arts in collaboration with the Firehouse Theatre Project, James River Film Society and University of Richmond Film Studies Program) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Thursday, MARCH 7th, 2013 @ 7:00pm - Roanoke, VA
Taubman Museum of Art FREE for members and students; $8 general admission tickets + more info • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Saturday, March 9th, 2013 @ 7:00pm - Rehoboth Beach, DE
Movies at Midway Upstairs Screening Room
(co-sponsored by Rehoboth Beach Film Society) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 @ 7:00pm - Annapolis, MD
Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts $7 MHCA members; $10 general admission tickets + more info • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Thursday, March 14th, 2013 @ 7:30pm - West Long Branch, NJ
Monmouth University Center for the Arts Free & Open to Public tickets + more info • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Friday, March 15th, 2013 @ 2:15pm and 7:15pm - Erie, PA
Institute for Arts & Culture @ Mercyhurst University
$6 for adults; $5 for students/seniors; $4 for president's card holders • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • |
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The On Screen/In Person tour is funded through Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program. |
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Buy the DVD with Extras directly from the filmmakers!
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[special features on the DVD include]
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 ($15.75 | we earn 50% of every sale when you buy a new DVD direct from Amazon)  (we earn 1 penny per view from hulu through advertising revenue)  ($2.99 rentals and $9.99 download-to-own | we earn 70% of all sales) |
 ($4.95 per 24-hour stream - we earn 70%)  (Netflix pays us a fixed fee every 3 months for a 2-year streaming deal) |
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"As entertaining as it is informative...one of the finest bio docs of the genre"
"An invigorating and often hysterical look at a gifted comic and the nation of dupes he continues to use as his medium"
"Like a reverse Jon Stewart, Abel has been creating fake news...preying on mainstream media's insatiable thirst for the lurid, the perverse, and the wacky"
"ABEL RAISES CAIN has the subject of the decade, a world-champion 'hoaxer' who has been fearlessly plying his odd trade for over fifty years"
"Consistently relatable, entertaining and refreshingly candid...A great film and an interesting childhood"
"Long before the Yes Men satirized Exxon and Halliburton, and before Ashton Kutcher was born, Alan Abel was the undisputed king of media hoaxers"
"ABEL RAISES CAIN covers four decades of hoaxes and paints a fascinating picture of a fascinating character"
"A rather brilliant portrayal of a true American original who probably hasn't gotten his due" |
film festival reviews:
"A humorous and highly personal documentary"
"An impressive debut...a heartfelt, interesting and, above all, entertaining film"
"Intriguing, affectionate...a very funny documentary"
"A lively, bittersweet portrait of the master prankster's career"
"A fun and fascinating look at an American original"
"A sweet funny tribute...makes the case that [Alan Abel] deserves to be more than a cultural footnote"
"An exhilarating and lovingly-made documentary"
"A loving portrait of an eccentric father" |
I decided to start working on a documentary about my father when I realized that programs like 20/20 and 48 Hours were barely skimming the surface of his interesting and bizarre career.
It was disconcerting to me that no one was doing justice to his story. Television shows that he appeared on would mention several of his more notable pranks and cut to a few clips of him fooling the media, but it never went any further than that. To make matters worse, he was usually lumped into news segments that featured fakes, frauds and scam artists and his sound bytes were edited in such a way that he came across as being mean-spirited.
Because I am the Abel's only child, I felt especially driven to tell my father's story. In 1998, I began incessantly following my parents around with a video camera. During that time, my father was in the middle of his most recent hoax, a campaign to ban breast-feeding.
I wanted to explore the two sides of Alan Abel that I grew up knowing very well – the loving family man and the slightly deranged professional hoaxer. I am hopeful the story reflects that, within my father, there is this strange intermediary realm in which both personas are seamlessly and continually intertwined.
Jenny initially began a career in music, having studied the viola since the age of 8 and receiving a scholarship to attend music school. But she decided to take a completely different path in life and transferred to Emerson College in Boston, graduating with a degree in video and television production. Jenny moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter and began coordinating overseas films for Nu Image and Millennium Films. Over the course of four years, she helped the company produce twenty-six pictures. In 2003, she left her job so that she could focus on finishing her own project, ABEL RAISES CAIN, her first feature documentary.
Jeff graduated from the University of West Florida with a degree in Communication Arts and began his career as a news photographer and editor at WBBH in Ft. Myers, Florida. He moved on to WAMI in Miami where he earned a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award in the Series Reporting Human Interest category for Mariel: 20 Years Later. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and became a freelance photographer, working on various news magazine and reality shows. In 2000, he was hired to shoot for the nationally syndicated show Uncovered. It was while working on this show that he first met Alan Abel, who subsequently introduced him to his daughter, Jenny. Together, Jeff and Jenny produced and directed their debut documentary film, ABEL RAISES CAIN.
Alan Abel & Jeanne Abel
Lee Chirillo (hoax accomplice)
Frank Murgalo (hoax accomplice)
Paul Hiatt (hoax accomplice)
Lou Colasuonno (former editor-in-chief/New York Post )
Bill Boggs (talk show host, NYC)
Phil Reisman (NY newspaper columnist)
© 2012 ABEL RAISES CAIN, LLC
