Wired For Chaos, a gut-wrenching documentary based on the life of one of punk rock's most notorious figures, Harley Flanagan, is set for premiere on November 14 at the DOC NYC Documentary Festival in New York City.
This film is not about punk rock - it's about an extraordinary life and surviving astounding circumstances against immeasurable odds. Wired For Chaos touches on child stardom, trauma, child abuse and neglect, violence, depression, and the evolution of a boy into one of modern music’s fiercest personalities.
Musician Harley Flanagan burst onto the punk music scene at the age of 11 in the late 1970’s as drummer for his aunt’s New York based band, The Stimulators, later founding the seminal hardcore act Cro-Mags. Flanagan tells his inconceivable story through gritty footage of NYC’s downtown 1970s and '80s music scene as the backdrop, alongside stories from friends and peers like Flea, Ice-T, Henry Rollins, Michael Imperioli, members of Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Circle Jerks, Anthrax and many others.
Wired For Chaos’s World Premiere screening is Thursday, November 14, presented by DOC NYC in New York City at the Village East Cinema. A limited online screening will be available for fans worldwide from November 15 through December 1. A repeat screening will play November 21 at the IFC Center in NYC.
Thursday, November 14
9:30 PM
Village East Cinema By Angelika
181-189 2nd Ave.
New York, NY 10003
Q&A with film subject Harley Flanagan, director Rex Miller, and producer Laura Lee Flanagan following this screening.
Friday, November 15 - Sunday, December 1
Worldwide Online Streaming Limited Release
Tickets here
Thursday, November 21
9:15 PM
IFC Center
323 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10014
Wired For Chaos tickets and more information here.
While Harley's journey as a musician is certainly explored, Wired for Chaos centers on the lasting effects of trauma its integration into his present-day life. Harley Flanagan was a child prodigy musician, who raised himself in the very adult world of rock ’n’ roll. He was born to a Warhol Factory "it" girl, enmeshed in the Lower East Side artist sub-culture of the late 70s and 80s, surrounded by copious amount of sex, drugs and violence (as victim and later perpetrator), simultaneously achieving punk rock legend status.
In addition to touring with his band Cro-Mags all over the world, today Harley Flanagan is also a Jujitsu professor (under the tutelage e of Master Renzo Gracie), devoted husband (having married a Park Avenue attorney), the father of two sons and a deeply introspective human. He confronts his past, hoping that it can bring him some peace, and pass what he's learned forward to others struggling. Though he has moved on from the violence of his youth, it is never far away as he works through his very pronounced PTSD. His primal instincts to survive remain sharp. The film is built around a vast archive of material, scenes with Harley and his friends, several intimate interviews with Harley and his wife, and abstract imagery and animation.
The Film:
Harley’s childhood with iconic artists (Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Joe Strummer, Alan Ginsburg) looks enviable on the surface, but ultimately his DNA is riddled with the trauma of abuse and sexual violence, laying the groundwork for an unstable adolescence and rocky young adulthood.
Filmmaker Rex Miller's career spans more than twenty-five years and has yielded 2 Peabody Awards, several Emmy's and two Oscar shortlists. He recently directed (with Sam Pollard) the film “Citizen Ashe” (CNN Films), which won Best Documentary at both the 2022 Critics Choice and Grierson Awards and was nominated for a Sports Emmy for Best Feature Documentary.
