Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus'
Synopsis
This documentary examines the distinctive production process of the 2006 film *Shortbus*, including interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and clips from the film itself. Director John Cameron Mitchell begins by outlining his vision of incorporating real sex into a film with a positive message. The cast, composed of unknown actors, was selected from homemade audition tapes and further refined through a callback audition workshop. Additional acting workshops were conducted to develop the characters and script. The project faced several challenges, and the documentary follows its progress through to the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 11
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by M Sean Kaminsky
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Cast & Crew
11 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Producers
1Other crew
1Parents Guide
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