The Self-Destruction of Gia (2003) [NR]

Featuring:
Gia Carangi, Janice Dickinson, Sandy Linter

Directed by:
J.J. Martin


Release Date:
May 7, 2003

Original Title:
The Self-Destruction of Gia

Alternate Titles:
An American Girl: The Self-Destruction of Gia

Genres:
Documentary

Production Companies:
Cine L'Mod Productions

Ratings / Certifications:
US: NR 

Runtime: 80

Filmmaker JJ Martin explores Gia Carangi's life through rare home movies and photos, previously unseen interviews with Gia, and contemporary interviews with family, friends, and associates.

This film has probably helped to saved lives.This is not some Hollywood schlock from the likes of HBO, but instead a thoughtful well intentioned, asking and telling of the facts of Gia's short, but brilliant life. She was truly a Shooting Star.Zoe Lund tells in loving detail how wonderful shooting Heroin can be, until you think you my might just want to try it yourself, and she follows up with just what it's like when you run out. The conclusion you reach, as you listen to Zoe, is that the only way to successfully take Heroin is to NEVER start.If you only see the HBO film "Gia", you'll notice that Angelina never looked worse and the film is thin and uninteresting.You must see "The Self-Destruction of Gia" if you are any kind of Gia Carangi fan, period! I was lucky enough to get tickets when it showed on the last day at the Tribeca Film Festival, and the theater was totally packed. After the film ended, everyone sat thru the credits and seem mesmerized and totally quite as the house lights came up. I've never heard such a dead silence after a film. This film made it past hundreds of other films to be chosen to show at the Tribeca Film Festival, so I guess Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese must have liked it, as you will too.I bought the DVD online and will be holding on to this baby! Also I'd like to say I think the Directing and Editing is constantly intriguing as you wait for the next probing question and honest revelation.You don't have to know Gia before you see this film, but you will know her after you have seen it.

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Rankings and Honors

The Self-Destruction of Gia (2003) on IMDb
Internet Movie Database 8.4/10

Cinematography:
Johan Holm

Digital Compositor:
David Lee Boehm

Director:
J.J. Martin

Executive Producer:
Giuseppe Giovanni

Producer:
J.J. Martin

Production Consultant:
Jonathan Gray

Sound Recordist:
David Lee Boehm

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