There’s a great piece in this week’s LA Weekly interviewing Banksy regarding his role in his new documentary film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, and his true relationship with the film’s subject/collaborator Mr. Brainwash (aka Thierry Guetta). While many people think it is yet another prank in the long history of Banksy’s twisted imagination, he vows it is anything of the sort, and tells the Weekly, “It’s more shocking than that, because every bit of it’s true.” The movie uses much of Guetta’s personal archived footage from the 90s onward, which Banksy then used to put together the film following the dynamics of the two artists. To make the film, they had to hack their way through 10,000 hours of Guetta’s archived footage, which prompted Banksy to say , “I didn’t know if I believed he was a filmmaker, or a mental patient with a camera.” There’s some other nice stuff in there too, including some not-so-kind words from Shepard Fairey about the Frenchman Guetta’s insatiable need for self-promotion, which both motivates and centers the film. Nice. Can’t wait to check it out.

5-minute review below…